Happy Festivus!!

Yes, this time of year is the magical time known as "The Logjam of Holidays"! Alright, so I just now made that term up, but there are quite a few of them. There are real holidays like Christmas and New Year's and fake holidays like Festivus, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. We even had our Holiday Lunch at work last week where I won the amazingly opulent prize of a box of a dozen candy canes (much different than Teri's guess of a TV when I told her I had won a prize).

Today is my last day of coming to work in 2008 (and I actually did get a little bit of work done too...bonus), and the preparations for Christmas are nearly done. Once I get the Christmas travel out of the way tomorrow, I'll be ready to celebrate Santa's birthday in style, which seems to be how you celebrate Christmas from the decorations I've seen in the stores.

The downside to Christmas this year is that Teri couldn't get vacation time to come to Illinois with me, so we'll be apart for 5 days while I'm there. The upside is that I have a fiancee to come back to in Ohio. (She's a pretty amazing fiancee too.) One of the fun things I have to look forward to doing with Teri when I get back is going to the zoo for wildlights for free. We tried going earlier in the month, but the line was too long for us to get in with enough time to actually see stuff. When Teri e-mailed the zoo about this, they said they'd send a pass for free parking and free admission tickets.

Oh yeah, Lucy has requested more pictures of Sparky and Aunt Teri, so here are some I stole from Teri's myspace page. Enjoy, Lucy.

Party!!!

If it's one thing I know about Teri it's that she loves Christmas and Christmas parties. I also know this to be true about her friend Jazz. Why do I know this? It's quite simple. The sign that adorns the exterior of their co-owned titty bar establishment is currently emblazoned with a message about how there is a party December 19 and that Teresa and Jazz will be handling the bartending duties. Why would the owners of the place deign to perform such a lowly duty if not for their love of the festive occasion?

So in the spirit of Christmas, celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, drink yourself into a stupor and dance topless around a brass pole (bottomless is optional since it is cold at this time of year; safety first)!

Thank You Darren

If it wasn't for you, I never would have known the joy that is the commercial stylings of a certain Vern Fonk after logging on to the 'intermet'.

DANCE! SHIPOOPI!

Where Are We Going, And Why Are We In This Handbasket?

So the U.S. voting populace apparently really is that gullible. I guess I should focus on the two silver linings from yesterday's election. The more important one is that the Democrats didn't get their filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate. The other is that we should get at least a three week break until the political ads start up for the 2010 election cycle.

Maybe it's not so bad. The economy is in the crapper right now, and no matter what the POTUS does, it looks like it will be staying there for a while. There's also no way that Obama will be able to keep his campaign promise to remove all the troops from Iraq in 18 months. Those are massive footholds for conservatives for the midterm 2010 election and the 2012 presidential election. Maybe by 2012 the Republicans will wise up and nominate a good candidate like Mitt Romney. You know, like they should have done this year.

Hold on, the next four years could be a bumpy ride.

So Overdue You'd Think It Was A Library Book

Yeah, I've been engaged for 10 days and probably should have already written this, but I've been busy, so I'm just now getting to it. Here's the long-winded version (you've been warned) of how I proposed to Teri.

On Saturday, October 18th Teri and I were meeting our Bible study group at the church to head out for Circle S Farm. I showed up around 9:20 that morning because I knew we'd have some phone calls to make before heading out. I put the ring (in the box) and my camera in my jacket pocket to camouflage the fact that the ring was there. When I got to Teri's she was predictably not ready yet. I knew that would be the case, as I was getting there early. She headed into her bathroom to finish curling her hair, and I set about clipping my fingernails.

I then put Sparky in his cage so he wouldn't be jumping all over me and I got the ring out of my jacket pocket. As I walked over to the bathroom where Teri was, I said "I have a question". It was at this point that I, for whatever reason, assumed that she'd pause with what she was doing and stick her head out of the bathroom inquisitively. Of course, that's not how it worked, and Teri kept curling away. At that point I said "Maybe you should turn around". She did.

When she turned around, I was on my knee with the ring out and I asked her if she would marry me. She was very happy and said "yes", which was followed up shortly by her asking if it all was real. I assured her it was. After she quickly wrapped up getting her hair ready, we called her parents to let them know that we were engaged. Then we called my parents, who were out of town riding horses. I left a voicemail message, and my parents didn't actually find out that we were engaged for a little over 24 hours. Oh well, I did what I could. I then called my siblings to let them know, and we headed off to the church to meet everyone.

I'm glad that I proposed when I did because Teri got to show off the ring to a bunch of people right away, she wasn't going to sleep well that night with running her first marathon the next day anyway and it gave her something to think about during the marathon to distract her from the task at hand.

We've already started some of the wedding planning, and if you check out the links on the right side of my blog, you'll see the link for our wedding blog that will have updates and whatnot on it.

I love you Teri.

Busy, Busy, Busy
I've got quite the busy Saturday planned.

1. Get up
2. Eat breakfast/get ready
3. Write this blog post
4. Head over to Teri's
5. Propose
6. Go to Circle S Farm
7. Watch OSU game with Teri and her family
8. Have spaghetti dinner
9.
10. Profit

Unless something goes terribly wrong, I'll be engaged in less than an hour. :)

Whenever...

I got back to work a couple of hours ago after Charlie picked me up from dropping my car off at Motorkars to get all fixed up. "But Matt", you'd say, "it doesn't take 45 minutes to drive from Motorkars back to work." I'd agree with that. The delay came from our little jaunt to Caribou (not "The 'Bou") for me to get permission to propose to Teri. Permission granted/blessing given. If you're reading this now, it means that the ring has also been given and that Teri said 'yes'.

So when will I do it?

I'm Waffling So Much You Could Eat Me For Breakfast

The original plan to propose was to do it at the outset of our next fancy date, which was originally going to be October 24th. With the trip to Michigan for Callie's birthday that weekend, the plan changed to November 1. That was all fine and dandy originally. The problem is, though, that I have Teri's engagement ring hiding in my bedroom right now, mere tens of feet from where I am now, and I really just want to give it to her and make our engagement official. I haven't talked to Charlie yet, but I'm hoping to do that this weekend. If I had already talked to him, that still wouldn't solve the problem of me not being settled on when and how I'm going to actually propose.

The upside to waiting for November 1 is that I could do it in such a way that Teri will have a nice story to tell. The upside of doing it before then is that I won't have to keep waiting, worrying about whether I'll say or do something to tip my hand and ruin the surprise. Plus, the earlier we get engaged, the longer (albeit only by a few weeks) we'll have to find a place to have the wedding and reception. I guess I've got some more thinking to do. Bah!

The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Tourists

On Saturday, I went to Hocking Hills for the first time with Teri. As it was my first time there, we did the obligatory Old Man's Cave hike. It was quite picturesque. Don't believe me? Here are some pics, rubberneck.





We got a bit lost on our hike, and I think our total hiking mileage ended up being around 6 miles. I'll feel really bad if that in any way negatively affects Teri's marathon performance next Sunday.

On top of the natural beauty, and Teri's beauty, the Hocking Hills area boasts copious roadway beauty as well. Very fun, twisty roads were everywhere. It was like a playground for cars. We're definitely going to have to make a return trip to the area next Fall, if not before then.

This Isn't About Things Of or Related To Poland

Yesterday I had some issues with the garbage disposal and noticed that there was a hole in the side of it. Teri's ring also needed a good polish (nothing to do with Poland at all), so I decided to swing by the jewelry store on my way to Lowe's since they are next to each other and I could consolidate the trip. I stopped at the jewelry store first because I expected that I'd have to drop the ring off and pick it up some other time, which I didn't have to do.

Anyhow, one of the fine gents who has his employ at the jewelry store used to work in construction and I was making small talk with him while I waited on the polish (again, no Poland here) to happen. He suggested I pick up some JB Weld and put some on some duct tape (what can't it fix?) and use that combination to repair the small hole. That's precisely what I did. I'll find out tonight if it worked. Also, Teri's ring is now ready to give to her when the time is right. That's a pretty productive trip in anyone's book, even if there weren't any submarines with screen doors involved.

The Canary Is In The Cage!

Or some old-timey spy-code lingo. I picked up Teri's engagement ring tonight, and here is a pic of it. As you can tell, I'm not in any way a jewelry photographer. They got it done really fast. I didn't notice until I got it home that there's a small spot on the band that needs to be polished a bit, but that shouldn't be any big deal to have done. I could probably drop it off before I work out on Saturday and pick it up when I'm done. I'm really looking forward to giving it to Teri!

This Is Killing Me

So the plan is to wait until November 1st to actually propose. (Okay, so the original plan was to propose on the 24th, but a birthday party got in the way of that.) The thing is that ever since I bought the ring on Saturday, all I want is for the work on it to be finished (they're doing some custom work and have to actually mount the diamond) and to propose. The ring isn't even supposed to be done until next Tuesday, but I'm already getting impatient.

I keep going back and forth on when the best time would be to talk to Teri's dad too. I guess that depends on when I decide to propose. I want to have as little time as possible between when I talk to him and when I propose to decrease the chance of Teri finding out about it.

What makes it even worse is that I can't tell anyone anything about it. I suppose I could, but I decided a while ago that I won't because I don't want anyone knowing about it until Teri knows. Can I just go to sleep tonight and wake up 3 weeks from now? That would make all of this a whole lot easier.

Maybe to keep things in perspective I should just remember that if you had told me at this time last year that I would be getting ready to propose, I would have had a hard time believing it. That's probably a better focus than thinking about how I've waited long enough already.

Bought the Ring

Yesterday I bought Teri's engagement ring. Since I can't tell anyone about it, I decided to write about it (and not actually publish the blog until I give it to her). I'm having them do a little bit of custom work on it and they'd have to resize it and set the diamond in it anyway, so it won't be ready for 10 days.

If Teri knew this, she'd be super excited. However, if she knew that the time I plan to propose to her has already been pushed back a week because of scheduling she might be less excited about Callie's birthday party. :)

I'm sure this won't be the only delayed-publish blog post I write in October.

Well That's Nice

I had my follow-up doctor's appointment for my surgery yesterday, and I got the all-clear to resume normal activities. Well, what were normal for me anyway. I still have to wear an earplug in the shower and keep the ear dry, but I was doing that before surgery anyhow. I can work out again though, which is good because after 3 weeks I'm feeling pretty soft and doughy.

After the surgery, the doctor had put some dissolvable packing in my ear canal to hold the graft in place so it could heal. There was still some packing left on the eardrum, so he put some fluid in my ear to soften things up and then removed the packing. Between the packing removal and the suction to remove the fluid, there were some hurty moments and I had to stop watching what he was doing on the monitor on the wall, but in the scheme of things it was no big deal. Part of it might have been that the suction thingy (technical term) is super loud when it's all up in your eardrum's business.

Now I just have to keep the ear dry for 6 months or so and be diligent in my application of sunblock on my graft donor site on my arm next summer and hopefully I'll be done worrying about my ear problems. That's what I thought a couple years ago when I had the tube removed though, so I'm staying cautiously optimistic...with emphasis on the 'cautiously'.

I just want to be able to shower and swim and not constantly worry about ear infections like a normal person. Is that so much to ask? So far, the answer has been 'yes'.

Creepier Than A Crazy Cat Lady

So everyone knows how creepy crazy cat ladies are. You'd have to be crazy to be the only person in a house full of cats after all. The big reason is that they treat their animals like they were actually people when they clearly aren't. However, I discovered something this morning far more disturbing. Crazy doll ladies. They have very life-like baby dolls they play with.

In the segment I saw on the Today show, the guests downplayed taking the dolls out in public and using them to fill the void in their lives left by not having children of their own. Even if that's true, and I highly doubt it is, it's still creepy as hell that a grown woman would still play with dolls as though it's a completely normal thing to do.

It's like one big pile of crazy.

I'm the Brett Favre of Ear Surgery

Yesterday morning I had a tympanoplasty done to fix my right ear drum, which has plagued me lo these many years. They cut out the bad, mucousy spot of my ear drum down to healthy tissue and bone and used a skin graft from my left arm to patch it all up. Then I got a prescription for vicodin to help with the pain. I wonder if that means, after my 3 week wait to return to vigorous physical activity, that I'll be able to throw a football like an NFL quarterback. Probably not. I don't intend to get addicted to the vicodin in the first place like a certain QB. In fact, I'm already trying to taper my dosage on it to get down to being able to just use ibuprophen. After all, I'm not allowed to drive while I'm taking vicodin.

Also, it was very nice of Teri's mom to chauffer me around for surgery and to go get my NFL-style prescription filled. She also dropped off a crock pot full of delicious and a box of additional supplies. It was very nice to see Teri here when I got home from the hospital and to get to spend the rest of the day with her.

Hopefully this surgery is the thing that finally fixes my ear and lets me return to a normal life of not constantly worrying about ear infections and ear problems. I suppose time will tell.

It's Official!!

I'm finally an official member of the Hudson family. Why? I mounted my new rain gauge on the deck railing tonight. Now I'll have accurate rainfall amounts to report...if it ever rains again here. Thanks for the swag J-rod.

The Last One

The final nervous, awkward meeting is now out of the way. Last weekend Teri and I headed back to Illinois so she could finally meet my family. What they say about time flying when you’re having fun is true because I don’t remember 4 days of work ever going nearly as fast as the weekend did.

We headed out on Thursday night after work and stayed with Jarrod and Melissa (aka Melrod). It was good to see them again, and it was nice to finally see their new house. Their new house is out in the middle of nowhere, and there were some storms passing through. That made me nervous enough driving on country roads at night with rain, but the windmills backlit by flashes of lightning were far creepier than I thought a windmill could be. Yes, I realize that sounds like a total pansy thing to say, but if you saw what they looked like, you’d know what I mean. Here's Teri doing her windmill impression on Friday. The actual windmills were far creepier.

After a night of not enough sleep for everyone except Lucy (who gets to take naps anyway), Melissa fixed us some delicious biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Mmmm. We then hung out with me catching up with Melrod and Melrod getting to know Teri. Lucy enjoyed playing with Teri and I, and I think that Lucy and Teri are total BFFs now. Though Lucy also enjoyed playing with the cooler, so I'm not sure what that means.

Later in the afternoon, we headed back to the HC to my parents’ house and we unloaded the car. Teri, my parents and I then went to visit my grandma so Teri could meet her before the big dinner on Sunday and to eat at IHOP for dinner since, for some unknown reason, we don’t have one in Columbus. It’s quite the oversight. The food was delicious.

On Saturday morning, I took Teri up to the Rock Island Trail so she could get her 8 mile run in, and I headed over to Süd’s and test drove a 2008 R32. It was quite unimpressive for being a $32k car. Boo VW for screwing up such a wonderful car!

In the afternoon, it was off to Todd’s so Teri could meet Todd, Robbin, Allie, Connor and Brenden. We had a nice, brief visit since the point was to make Teri less nervous about Sunday, not to burn her out on family. From there, it was off to Liz’s for another brief visit to meet Liz, Bob, Ben and Andy. Teri couldn’t get over how amusing it was to hear “Goodbye Uncle Matt” in such a deep voice from Andy.

I then showed her the old farmhouse where my family used to live and the high school I went to. About the time we were getting ready for dinner, Grandpa called and said he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be there on Sunday, so we headed to Eureka to visit him and Ethel. It was an enjoyable evening.

The big Sunday dinner was nice and relaxed, and Teri fit in with the whole family just fine. She had been nervous for nothing. We went on a walk, and Todd was nice enough to wait until later to mention the snake he saw, and then we took Connor, Brenden and Lucy out to see the horses and cats.

After getting up and getting things packed on Monday, it was back to C-bus for Teri and I. Teri does like breakfast foods, as you can clearly see here.

It’s nice to officially know now that Teri and I both fit in well with each other’s families. It was also just a really nice weekend in its own right.

A Nice Weekend

But which one? I meant to write about last weekend on Monday, but now it's Wednesday already and all I can think about is that next weekend starts tomorrow when Teri and I head to Illinois so she can meet my family. The past three days have just felt like obstacles to get past so that Thursday evening can finally be here. Maybe it's because I've been looking forward to this weekend for quite a while now, or maybe it's just my natural impatience. I don't know. In the end, does it matter?

I guess my favorite part of last weekend is just the number of different ways in which I was reminded why I love Teri and why she's right for me. I won't bother listing them here, but trust me, there were plenty. Another theme I've been noticing over the past few weeks is that when I'm spending time with Teri, I start having thoughts about what it will be like to be married to her and get to share life with her. I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.

Yeah, it's a long, boring drive (at least alone it is), and yeah, Lucy will be disappointed that Sparky isn't with us, but how wouldn't this be a good weekend? After all, we'll have the last awkward, nervous meeting out of the way...finally.

Don't worry Teri, I'll stop joking about proposing now.

Honestly Officer, She Told Me She Was 16

Since I'm no gymnastics expert, I didn't realize until Sunday that apparently there is a rule that a gymnast must be 16 or older to compete in the Olympics. There has been quite the hub-bub about how young some of the Chinese gymnasts look, with speculation that some may be as young as 12. First, my feeling on the rule itself is 'who cares?'. If a 12 year old is better at something than a 16 year old, they should be rewarded for that. Second, I see the Chinese having super young gymnasts competing as a source of national pride, which is a big part of what the Olympics is all about. I mean, what country has a longer, more illustrious tradition of putting children to work than China? Just because the gymnastics arena isn't formally a sweatshop, that's no reason to get down on China about child labor. They're just doing what they do best. Besides, their gymnasts may very well be 16. Have you seen how much smaller Asian people are? Add to that how small gymnasts in general are, and it seems pretty obvious to me that Chinese gymnasts would be miniature people.

Cars And Such

Saturday the Central Ohio Vintage Volkswagen Club put on their annual Volksfest show, and Teri and I went. This is the second time I've been, and the weather was so much more comfortable this year than it was the first time. That might have something to do with the August scheduling. It was cool to see all the old restored VWs and some of the newer ones that I recognized from other VW actvities. What I liked most about the outing though was that Teri was enjoying herself and that she made the comment that she likes seeing me excited about something even if it isn't something she'd be interested in on her own. How cool is that? Some guys have to beg and plead to be allowed to go to a car function on their own. My girlfriend not only is happy to let me go but she likes going with me!

Since Teri is a fan of orange, it seemed only natural that there should be a picture taken of her in front of the metallic orange dune buggy that was there. Something tells me that she would have been right at home driving that vehicle back to her place.


In addition to Volksfest, we also ventured out to Casa de Kludy for a movie night on Friday where we watched all 99" of The Prestige in their home theater in their basement and I enjoyed a can of wine. There was also a good deal of Olympics watching this past weekend too. I did actually enjoy watching the gymnastics too...for much the same reason Teri enjoyed looking at cars. She was a gymnast for 6 years when she was a kid. It's the first time I've watched gymnastics with someone who actually participated at one point. It was also fun to see the Phelpedo continue his dominance in the pool.

Going back to work after spending a weekend with Teri is such a let down.

Brett Who?

So apparently there is this professional footballer named Brett Farve (or something like that) who announced his candidacy for the starting Quarterbacking job for the New York Jets Professional Football Concern. I remember hearing something about him briefly back in 1991 when he played in Atlanta for a year, but then he just vanished for 16 years. I think I heard somewhere that he had been banished far to the north, likely playing in Canada for some or all of that period. It's hard to say. There is such sparse information on this lad. I suspect he may have taken over quarterbacking duties for the Montreal Alouettes or the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I wonder how many Rouges he must have scored over the years. I guess the world will never know. Perhaps if he plays well enough in New York, Mr. Farve might even make a name for himself in the NFL.

Why Do You Ask?

Since I had this conversation in passing with someone again this morning, it reminded me that I've meant to write about it for a while.

Them: How's it going?
Me: Hi.
Them: Good!

When it's someone I don't really know, I can tell that they don't mean it when they ask how I'm doing or how things are going, so I respond with what they mean, just a simple hello, not with what they say. Their response to what they expected my response to be further reinforces that they don't care because they clearly weren't listening. Why would you ask me a question you don't want the answer to or don't care about the answer to? I won't do that to you. If I don't really care how your day is going, I'll just give you a polite 'hi' and leave it at that. Conversely, if I ask how your day is going, I want an honest answer, not just your stock response of "OK" when you're dying on the inside or overjoyed. Why do people feel the need to cheapen everything including language? I wonder if it registers as odd to the other person like it does to me the conversation we had. I guess I don't really care, which kind of works out because they don't either.

It's Like A Great Big Mystery

So it's been about a week since Teri announced to me that she has some blog post in mind that she's going to write, yet it still hasn't appeared. Does she still not know how curious (and impatient) I am? She does realize that the wait is only raising my expectations of what she's going to write, right? Meanwhile, her blog goes empty, unread and unloved. :(

Telling me that there's something on the way only makes me anticipate it more, which raises my expectations for that thing, which may further delay her writing to make sure it meets the expectations, which causes further delay, which further raises expectations, which...well you see where this vicious circle is going. How about this as a new strategy? You don't tell me that you have something in mind to write. You just write it and let me read it when it's up. I've been checking every day anyway on the off chance there will be something new (even before you told me to expect something). I like reading what she writes. I like knowing what she's thinking. I'm like a sponge for all things Teri, so why is her blog so dry? I prefer to keep things moist.

I Feel Bad For Michelle Obama

With Barack Obama's foreign policy views vis-a-vis Iraq, I can't help but believe that his line of thinking might extend to other areas of his life. That seems like a less than ideal situation if you're his wife. Everyone knows that Obama wants to set a timetable to pull out from Iraq whether the job is actually finished or not. What if he has the same approach in the bedroom? When else does he pull out early before the job is done? How unsatisfied is Michelle Obama? If a man can't even keep his wife happy, how is he supposed to make the American people happy? Sure, we've all seen him bump her fist in public, but what parts of her aren't getting bumped long enough in private? Come to think of it, his fist bumping is pretty brief too. Perhaps there's a pattern here...

Finally

After a nearly week-long stretch of ridiculous heat, the cold front finally got here today. It really makes me look forward to the Fall, which is the best season of the year anyway. Is it a coincidence that the weather is giving a bit of a Fall preview on the same day that the Bears report to training camp? Hmmm. Speaking of which, I'm looking forward to the football season again this year as always, but my excitement is lower than last year at this time. That's largely because of how much of a failure last season was, thus lowering my expectations for this season, but it's also because I will have other things to hold my attention this Fall. Not that I haven't had other things in the past. It's not like I'm some sort of deranged buckeye fan or something. I just have even more good non-football things to hold my attention. I'm also not opposed to time going by quickly for the next 9-10 months either.

Hot Fun In The Summertime

A little over 3 months after Teri and I started dating, she finally got to meet some of my family. I guess that's how it works when they all live 400 miles from here. My parents came to visit last weekend, and as I expected, they really liked her. I knew she'd be nervous meeting them, even though I knew she didn't need to be. After all, I was nervous when I met her family. Granted, we had only been dating 3 weeks at the time, but still, it's just a nervous thing to be doing. I should also note that starting last Monday I had a summer head cold, and I'm still getting over the last little bit of it. I mention this because I was worried all last week about how well I'd be on Friday when Mom and Dad arrived. Thankfully, I felt fairly decent.

Mom and Dad arrived a little before 5 pm on Friday, and Teri arrived at Team Hudson Headquarters (THHQ) between 5:30 and 6. I don't remember exact times because that was a few days ago and, well, because I'm Matt. We went to P.F. Chang's for dinner, and the food was teh awesome! We all got water to drink, and as is the case in any decent establishment, there was lemon in the water. One nice touch is that there was also a little orange plastic sword stuck in the lemon wedge. Teri had a great deal of fun stabbing me in the arm with her sword. She and I were going to have a mini sword fight, but the waitress took all but one of the swords off the table. Boo waitress!! After dinner, we walked around Easton and just looked around. I was surprised that Teri was able to walk past a Victoria's Secret that had some sort of sale going on without ever walking in. Perhaps it had something to do with my parents being there. The world may never know the exact reason. It will be a mystery much like the Loch Ness monster. Later in the evening, we retired to the hacienda where Teri took the opportunity to look at the pictures of me when I was a kid that my parents had brought. This was a period of big fun for her. Great big fun for her. She's been looking forward to that for a couple months now, which is understandble because she is a self-described picture whore. I also noticed that I was good at winding up in pictures with a cheesy grin or just a generally ornery look on my face from a very early age. I guess I'm pretty advanced like that.

Saturday morning Teri took her long run to continue preparing for the marathon, and my parents and I ran some errands, some of which involved procuring the supplies for dessert that evening and for lunch on Sunday. We then picked up Teri when she was ready and headed to Chick-fil-A for lunch. Since it is right next to the Caribou coffee that Teri and I met at, we headed over there for some delicious coffee beverages and sat outside to enjoy them. There was even a re-enactment of my handshake and her hug attempt. Teri was having great fun with that as well. We then swung back to THHQ to pick up the supplies for the evening dinner with Teri's parents and headed over to Team Kautz Headquarters (TKHQ) so we could all finally meet Liea. She's way cute and still looks to be in good shape, so it's clear to me that Darren isn't treating her like a corkscrew. Really Darren, how did you get that corkscrew to jump a few teeth like that? I'm still baffled by it.

When it was time, we went from TKHQ to Teri's parents place, stopping at Teri's apartment to pick up Sparky on the way. Saturday evening having dinner and hanging out with Teri and all of the parents was the highlight of the weekend. When I've spent time with Teri and her parents before, it's felt like I'm hanging out with her and her family. This was different though. It felt like we were three couples hanging out and, more than that, like it was just our family hanging out. Our parents seemed to really hit it off and to really like each other, so it's nice to not have to worry about that. Honestly, that's the only thing I had any worries about for the weekend (other than my aforementioned illness). I need worry no more. Also, I realized on Saturday night that a delicious application for the brownies from Melissa's grandma's recipe is for brownie sundaes. I don't know if Jarrod and Melissa have ever utilized them for that or not, but they've been cheating themselves if they haven't. If you don't think that a brownie topped with vanilla ice cream topped with hot fudge isn't a tasty treat, then you are completely retarded...or Celine Dion...or both. Here's a pic from the brownie sundae construction period.


Sunday morning Teri met us at THHQ, and off to church we went. We actually got there on time and were able to get four seats together that weren't even in the front row. Afterwards, it was back to THHQ where Teri and I fixed lunch. Despite a brief detour from the recipe, everything turned out just fine and I even have delicous leftovers. Of course, we then had to use some of the leftover brownie sundae supplies to have brownie sundaes for lunch dessert because the only thing better than deliciousness is more deliciousness (okay, so Teri is even more better than more deliciousness). Here's pictorial proof that the cooking did in fact happen.


It wasn't long after that that my parents headed out for their trek back to the HC and Teri and I went to her place so Sparky could be let out to do his bidness before we went to see The Dark Knight. If you haven't seen it yet, you are cheating yourself. Not only is it a good superhero movie, but it is just a good movie in general. Whether he wins or not, Heath Ledger should at least get some Oscar consideration. Since I had found out just last Thursday that Sonic does indeed serve their breakfast food all day, we had to stop there for dinner. I then proceeded to get a delicious breakfast sandwich. As Sonic is a drive-in, we headed back to Teri's where we dined on her veranda. The food was delicious, and my dinner companion was gorgeous as always. We then spent the rest of the evening enjoying each other's company and trying not to think about how the weekend was already over, yet again, and we'd have to get through another work week. One of these days we're just going to have to get married so we can skip all the being apart during the week crap. I can already do without that.

I don't quite remember when, but at some point over the weekend, Mom and Dad also found out what Teri's last name is. I thought I mentioned it to them, but I guess they never asked, and giving out such information tends to slip my mind so I wasn't shocked that I hadn't told them. I guess it probably didn't seem terribly important to me either since it won't be staying that way much longer anyhow.

With how well things went this weekend and how much my parents like Teri, I'm looking forward to Labor Day weekend even more now so she can meet the rest of the family. I know Lucy's looking forward to it too since she's already said she wants to play with Teri (though she'll have to come to C-bus to visit Sparkley). I think they'll get along quite well. The only thing about Labor Day weekend is that I won't be able to joke with Teri about proposing to her anymore because after she meets my family I'm allowed to propose for real. If there's a chance it's real, I won't joke with her about that. That clock is already ticking though, and it's the best clock ever...even better than Flavor Flav's neck clocks.

Well That Was Weird...

I know that I'm really starting to sound like a broken record here, but I had yet another great weekend with Teri. I was able to go watch what might be her last softball game of the season Friday night and her mom and her friend Jazz (aka Jen) were there for conversation during the game. After the game, Teri and Jazz hung out since Jazz has been out of town for a while. While they were catching up, the car got a much needed bath so I could take my mind off of missing Teri. Hi, two birds. In case you were wondering, that was one stone I just killed both of you with.

Saturday was the normal morning exercise routine for me, but Teri got up extra early to get her whopping 16 mile run in (she's very impressive) before running some errands before our date. It was a double date for 2 (because there was double the amount of normal date activities), and it was also the weirdest date we've had so far...and also a very fun time. We started off dropping Sparky off at Teri's parents' place so they could watch him since we'd be gone so long and unable to feed him or let him out. I don't know if having her parents babysit for us so we could go on a date makes us an 'old married couple' already or not, but whatever.

We had to take a massive detour because of road construction to actually get to their house, which added about 30 minutes onto our travel time that I hadn't planned on. Since we were running so late, I wasn't in the best of moods. That kind of got the whole date off on the weird foot. Our first destination was COSI, which closes at the ridiculously early hour of 5 pm on Saturdays (what's wrong with 8 pm on a summer weekend?). Instead of getting there at 3 and having a couple hours to explore and enjoy, we got there at 3:30. At least it was free since Stephanie was nice enough to hook us up with free passes. It was a good time, but we just needed more than an hour and a half to see everything. It was too rushed. While we were at COSI, Teri captured this picture of me taking a 'space poo'.


I also feel that I should give some advice to the guys who might be reading this. In case you ever, hypothetically, find yourself in a confined space with your girlfriend in a public place, you will want to know everything you can about said confined space before you kiss her. For example, let's just say, hypothetically, that there happens to be a camera in said confined space that is hooked up to a monitor in a separate room where people, including children, may or may not be watching. If that's the case, your girlfriend might be embarrassed when you walk into said second room after having kissed her. You've been advised.

They also had a Science of Big Machines exhibit outside, and that's where I snapped this picture of Teri and I in the rearview mirror of a Caterpillar bulldozer. You can tell it's a Caterpillar bulldozer because of the warning sticker in the reflection. Okay, so that's a load of crap. You could tell it was a Caterpillar bulldozer because of the Caterpillar logos on the side of the bulldozer (not pictured). The only things you can tell from the picture is that Teri is way cute and I oftentimes forget to turn off the flash on the camera (all the bright specks in the picture are from the flash going off). What you can't tell from the picture but that is a fact (and my butt will back me up on this) is that Caterpillar makes a very comfy bulldozer seat.


After closing down COSI at 5, Teri and I took a trek (that covered a whole 2 blocks) to The Spaghetti Warehouse for dinner. This was the best part of the whole weekend. Teri and I were both in a weird/goofy mood, and we had really good conversation during dinner that was surrounded by us joking around and just generally acting like kids. It was way fun. The food was also quite tasty, especially the spinach/artichoke dip we got as our free appetizer. If you haven't had it before, you really should try it sometime. Also, since Teri likes the moose head on the wall, she snagged this picture of it before we left.


The original plan for our after-dinner date activity was going to be Waterfire. Now, the reasoning behind why I picked that activity was good (Teri is a bit of a pyro), but the execution was a bit flawed. We got done with dinner a bit earlier than I expected, and we had some time to kill before the proceedings got underway. That's not a problem. We could have just walked around downtown Columbus for a while to kill time. The problem with that option is that it was really hot and humid on Saturday, and it also started to rain. We ducked into my car to avoid getting soaked, and it was a bit reminiscent of our first date after we talked in my car for 2.5 hours after we closed down the Caribou. After the rain stopped, we ventured out for a walk, crossing the bridge next to the Santa Maria's parking spot. Here's a fun picture of Teri being a pirate in front of her ship. Unfortunately, her booty is missing from the frame.


The original plan was for the fires to get lit about 8:45, but at 8:20-ish, they announced that there was a storm coming and that they'd wait until 9:15 to light things. As it was very humid out and boring to just sit around waiting, we headed back to Casa de Hudson for the remainder of the evening until I took Teri home for sleeping purposes.

Sunday morning we went to church and then met up with Jazz for the Clippers baseball game that Teri had snagged free tickets for at work. Our seats were in the fifth row off the field, but that also means they were in the sun. Since all three of us were sweating before the game even started, we moved back to seats that were in the shade since plenty were available. It was a really fun afternoon. After getting back to Teri's place and letting Sparky out to do his bidness, we met up with her parents for a nice dinner. Then we took a nice walk afterward to work off some of what we just ate and to let things settle a bit. After some brief hanging out time, it was time for me to head home so Teri could get the weekend wrapped up and get to bed to start the week off right. Why are the weekends so short? There's just never enough time. Is it Friday yet?

P.S. Happy Bastille Day everyone.

Why You Gotta Be Like That?

So last night I watched a program I had DVRed from the History Channel about crude oil. Just over the first half of the program was quite interesting and informative. Then it just devolved into some sermon from The First Church of Al Gore, which was led by some big-wig at a solar power company, about "going green" and "greenhouse gases" and how fossil fuel pollution alone will bring catastrophe and calamity to us all.

I'm not saying that we need to go through gas like rappers go through Cristal in their videos. Being independent of foreign oil would be a very good thing for the U.S. What I don't cotton to is the assumption that humans alone are changing the global temperature by their actions or that we're the main cause of the change. That's an incredibly arrogant view. Don't people realize how insignificant we are in comparison to the other forces on this planet? Do people forget how much energy is unleashed in a volcanic eruption, an earthquake, a flood or a tsunami?

In spite of all the proselytizing in the second half of the program, there were still some interesting points made. It was a nice reminder of how much of our modern society revolves around petroleum. Even if we didn't use another drop of oil for energy, we'd still need the stuff for plastics and such. It's just a shame that those nuggets of information were buried so deep in the dross. Come on History Channel, you're better than that.

Another Book-Sized Post About Another Great Weekend

I must admit that I'd been looking forward to another long weekend with Teri ever since Memorial Day weekend, and I finally got to have another one with her. It was nice to start the weekend off by both of us getting to leave work early on Thursday so we could get our exercising out of the way to see each other sooner. Since Teri had been wanting to see The Karate Kid for a while and since we both were craving General Tzo's chicken, we spent the evening at her place and watched/ate those things. The Karate Kid was delicious, though chinese food is super boring to look at; it just sits there and does nothing. Maybe we should try it the other way next time. When I was laying on the floor after the movie, Sparky enjoyed sitting on my chest. I think that Teri enjoyed him doing that more than he did though. It's super cute when Teri gets caught up in enjoying things. I really like that.

On Friday morning I met up with Teri and her parents (she stayed at their place Thursday night) for the Upper Arlington July 4th parade. The weather was considerate enough to not be raining too hard at the beginning of the parade and to actually stop raining entirely for most of the rest of it. I think you'll agree from the picture that Teri is indeed teh hawt!! Am I lucky or what? After returning to her parents' hacienda for lunch/scrabble/trivial pursuit, the rain picked back up considerably, and it was nice to be inside.


We then took Sparky back to Teri's place and hung out for a bit before meeting up with Team Kautz for cheese and crackers before heading out on a fireworks excursion to the Park of Roses. Darren had picked up a delicious Spanish blue cheese (because, well, Darren likes Spaniards), and I put a tiny bit on a club cracker for Teri to try. She really didn't like the cheese at all, but I don't care about that. I guess I didn't really expect her to like it anyway. I was super impressed with her for trying it though (she's way braggable). When we got to the park, we just made our best guess for a spot that didn't require a ton of walking and that was open because we didn't know where the pyrotechnics would be set off. We chose poorly and could really only see the higher fireworks. It was a classic rookie mistake, but we know better for next time. Lesson learned. At least we got to see some fireworks. How could you possibly ask if I'd rather be somewhere else Teri? That didn't even make sense to me.

Saturday we got our respective exercising and chores out of the way and Teri and Sparky came over to the house. This was Sparky's first visit to Casa de Hudson, so we took him for a walk before letting him explore inside so that his bowels would be empty and he could get as excited as he wanted. That was a good plan on Teri's part (again, she's pretty braggable), because get excited he did exploring the place. I don't think his tail slowed below what could be best described as a breakneck wagging pace. It was also fun to see him slide around unable to gain traction on the floors downstairs. There was some shopping and errand running in the afternoon before Teri and I rented Batman Returns (so we can be prepared for the next one to come out in a couple weeks) and picked up a sausage pizza and salad from Donato's (don't read that part Melissa, you'll just get jealous). It was such a nice relaxing day hanging out at the house. We should do that more often...like every day forever.

Sunday we went to Teri's church and I met a couple guys afterward from the local VW club. Not only was Teri not anti-social like one of the ladies, but she participated in the conversation with excitement and enthusiasm (do you see how braggable she is?). There is absolutely no doubt that I was by far the luckiest guy participating in that conversation. It wasn't even close. Then after lunch with her parents we went swimming for a bit. It was nice and relaxing. After that Teri took me to ride go-karts (golf carts?) (I really can't brag enough about how amazing she is...for reals). I should probably write that again for added emphasis. Teri took me to go ride go-karts. Then we got cleaned up and ready for Frontporch (whatever that is), and despite my best efforts to ruin the day, Teri reminded me yet again how amazing she really is and how much I need to quit being such an ass. She deserves so much better than that. After Frontporch was over, I set up her digital/analog converter box so she'll be all set February 17th, 2009 for the continued TV viewing, though she should only really have to worry about that for a few months. No Sparky, the remote is not your new toy. Neither are the cables.

Now I'm back at work inundated with the suck that is Titanic Pulbications. It's quite the stark contrast to the past few days. Thank you for such an utterly amazing weekend Teri. Nobody anywhere had a better holiday weekend than I did. If you think differently, you clearly haven't been paying attention. Teri, I miss you already. Is it Labor Day weekend yet? Why not?

So Old He Farts Dust

Happy 27th Birthday J-rod!

Be careful celebrating today (especially if that celebrating involves playing the Wii). You don't want to break a hip in your advanced age.

That Looks Good On You

And no, it doesn't make your butt look big. To be fair, I've never been asked that dreaded question and she doesn't have a butt that lends itself to looking big anyway. I just couldn't pass up the joke. Sunday was Round 2 of information gathering for what Teri likes in jewelry because, well, I'm a guy and I can count on one finger the number of times I've picked out a ring. That time was my high school class ring, so that hardly counts as good practice. Even if I was a professional jeweler, there's still the matter of learning Teri's personal taste in rings. I did tag along with J-rod and Mom when he was looking at rings for Melissa, so I did learn some of the basics way back when, but now that I'm leading the proceedings it's a whole new deal.

You might be saying "But Matt, you and Teri both know you won't be getting engaged until after she's met your family over Labor Day weekend, why are you looking now?". To that I'd say "Pay attention, you rube!". I'm looking now and getting the 911 now so that when it is time to be shopping for realsies Teri won't be any the wiser as to the goings-on of ring purchasery. She wants to be surprised but not shocked when it happens. I intend to make both of those happen.

I realize what a tangent I've veered off on, so I'll get back to the meat of the story (mmm, meaty story). So anyway, we're at the store looking at rings, and for the first time Teri was trying on the rings and we looked at different diamonds and whatnot. I had already told the girls working at the ring vendor establishment what my timeframe for purchaseration was so as to take as much pressure off of the situation as possible. I know that sales pressure is the thing Teri most wants to avoid on these excursions, so I try to eliminate as much pressure as possible up front and take what's left on me so she can relax and enjoy the bling. I hope I've been successful with that so far. Now, I've made comments to Teri prior to Sunday about how I'm pretty sure I'm going to marry her and how I really want to marry her but that I realize we need to get to know each other better first. Seeing an engagement ring on her finger, even though it wasn't her ring, made the idea of marrying her more real than it's ever been. I'm not sure if I was more excited about that or if she was. There seemed to be plenty to go around, so I'm fine calling it a draw. I already felt like I won when I met her anyway.

And how could I not get excited about that? There she is just sitting in the chair next to me smiling ear to ear, my gorgeous girlfriend who I've already thought about marrying, with a real-life engagement ring on. It was the first tangible preview of her as my fiancee. I've waited 31 years to meet her, and she's more right for me than anyone I've ever met (and, quite frankly, more right for me than I ever expected a woman to be). How would I not be looking forward to marrying her? As I am a generally impatient gent and as I am completely ass over teakettle for Teri, I have a feeling that waiting to marry her will be the longest wait of my life. How do people date for years before getting married? I have absolutely no desire for that brand of foot dragging. I suppose I might have felt differently about that if I had met her a decade ago, but her dad would have come after me with a shotgun, and rightly so, if I had started dating her then. Is it time yet? How about now? Not now? Crap. I guess I'll keep waiting. At least I can finally see the finish line in the distance, which is actually the starting line, but that's another subject altogether.

Get On That!

So I usually watch the Today show in the morning when I'm eating breakfast to see the traffic report and weather (then I usually watch something I've DVRed so I don't have to listen to the cloying sound of Meredith Viera's voice blathering on about things nobody cares about), and today they had some couples on who have been married for a number of years and had decided to have sex a bunch more to rejuvenate the marriage. One couple copped to committing coitus for 101 consecutive days.

It was an interesting segment. They were talking about how when they had sex even when they weren't feeling like it, it brought them closer together and they put the little irritations in their marriage into perspective. Please note before reading any further (as you already probably know) that I'm unmarried and am quite possibly just talking out of my ass on this. After reading the book Sex God by Rob Bell, and realizing that God gave us marriage and sex as a picture, however imperfect, of what our relationship is supposed to be with Him and how intimate he wants to be with us. When one of the husbands on the Today show made the point that it's not feasible to be intimate every day but it's bad to be intimate rarely, I had to disagree with him. If he had said 'physically intimate', I would have agreed, but shouldn't you at least try to have some sort of intimacy every day (or at least close to it)? After all, we don't have sex with God when we're being intimate with him.

God wants to be intimate with us every day, so why should a marriage be different? Sure, God's perfect and spouses aren't, so I realize that trying to make a marriage an exact picture of the kind of relationship God wants with us isn't possible (and really, are any of our relationships with God exactly what He wants them to be?), but how much better would many marriages be if people tried for that unattainable goal? If you're reading this, you know I'm a perfectionist, so that line of thinking shouldn't surprise you in the least.

They gave a little factoid that recently married couples have sex, on average, 109 times a year. If you're married and your number is a lot lower than that, when you get home to your spouse tonight (or if you're already home, feel free when you're done reading this), get on that! It's an act of worship.

One More Step

So last weekend was spent with Teri and her family at her brother's hacienda by Detroit. There are a lot of things that happened that I wish I could remember to write about, but here are the highlights. On the drive up on Saturday, Teri's parents hopped into her grandparents car so her dad could drive, which left me driving the CR-V with Teri. She reminded me that she likes how I think out loud about what's going on when I'm driving. I would expect that to be something that would irritate other people to no end, but she thinks it's cute. How awesome is she? (In case you're simple, the answer to that question is "very awesome".) It was also nice to just have some alone time with her, the type of thing that would be in short supply until last night.

When we arrived and Teri's grandma was talking to Callie (Teri's niece), she said that "Aunt TT (Teri) and Uncle Matt are here". Then Teri's mom let an "Uncle Matt" slip too. I liked the sound of it both times. Very much. After we had lunch, we headed out for our afternoon excursion, which Teri was keeping a surprise for me. (Remember, she's very awesome.) We went to the Henry Ford museum, which also doubles as a "history of transportation and Americana in the late 19th and 20th centuries". There is also a fun outdoor part that has a bunch of buildings and homes and a glass-blowing shop from the late 1800s. We all had fun riding the carousel, and Callie's dog was a very trusty steed indeed. I should mention that Tim (Teri's brother) hooked us up with the Tim Price All-Access Pass that his work provided. Fun day + free = more fun day. The only downside was that we got stuck in the rain whilst outside. I can say that, while pina coladas are tasty, getting caught in the rain isn't all it's cracked up to be.

On the way back from our wonderful afternoon outing, we saw a guy driving his car while wearing a Spider-man mask. It wasn't one of those crappy plastic masks that you wear for Halloween as a kid and keep sticking your tongue in the mouth slit either. It was the whole shebang that you pull over your head to completely hide your secret identity. I'm curious as to the ne'erdowellery that lad was subverting in his green Saturn sedan. The world may never know. Then we stopped so Charlie (Teri's dad) could refuel our horseless carriage, and I headed inside to score some chocolate deliciousness for Teri, as she is a chocolate addict and needed a fix after having gone through the chocolate exhibit at the museum. It was at the point where I was paying for the M&Ms that I realized I had left my ATM card in the machine on Friday (Idiot!!). (I called later and got everything straightened out and my new card is on its way, but I digress.)

When we got back to the hacienda, the power had been knocked out from the earlier storm-passing-through-ness that had occurred. Tim grilled up some delicious BBQ chicken and we had yet another tasty meal. Then we took a walk and Callie's brain moved faster than her legs a couple times and she fell. When she was asked if anything was broken she said "yes"; when she was asked what was broken she responded with "me". Adorable.

The rest of the evening is a bit of a blur now because I was tired, but the electricity did come back on before it got dark and birthday presents were opened. One of the highlights to the whole trip was getting to say goodnight to Teri but not having to say goodbye for the first time. I could get very used to that. It was actually a bit difficult to fall asleep Saturday night because I knew that I'd get to see Teri first thing in the morning when I got up and I was super excited about that. After the dog's barking roused me from my slumber, I did get to see Teri. Then I got to kiss her. That was one of the best kisses ever, even if I wasn't really awake yet. It was the kind of kiss I'll probably never forget.




We had pancakes for breakfast, and Callie needed hers cut up. I asked if she wanted me to cut it for her and she said "You're a big, strong guy, so you can cut it up for me.". Adorable again. We then headed out for church where I was hug-raped by the greeter and some other woman in a secondary greeting capacity. It was all good though because God dropped some knowledge on me that I needed to hear and we got some coffee. For lunch we had delicious brats with sauerkraut (good call Lisa [Teri's sister-in-law if you don't know]!). Then Teri, Callie and I decorated the birthday cake with "leprechaun poo" and sprinkles. It was a delicious cake. Aftter having eaten too much, it was time to relax and almost take a nap. Then Teri and I took a walk by ourselves. Very good alone time.

Teri got to have a ride on Tim's motorcycle (his first ever passenger), and I got the nickname Little Matt. Apparently Lisa has a brother who is also named Matt and he's 7 ft tall. I've never been Little Matt before. I'm still adjusting to it. Baby Ben also stood on his own for the first time. Goodbyes were said and we set out for C-bus.

Teri's parents dropped her and I off at my house, and I took her home. We fed and walked Sparky and ended the night with a conversation, the contents of which will not be posted online. I'm still smiling thinking about it though. A lot. It makes me even more excited for the future.

Yeah, this turned into a bigmegahugelong post, but it was an awesomesweetfantasticfun weekend, so what do you expect? Thank you for inviting me Teri, and thank you for winking at me.

I Hate Shopping!

Okay, so I've never been one to look forward to running errands and going shopping and all that goes into that: traffic, crowds, etc. My thinking on that over the past couple of months has changed though. Last night I got to go run errands with Teri, and it was such a fun evening. It certainly didn't hurt that she looked way cute last night. That bears repeating. Good lord did she look good last night! There was shopping for running gear and birthday presents and birthday cake mix gettery, none of which sound particularly like a thrill ride. After 4 days of not seeing her though, it was just so nice to get to spend the evening with Teri again. She makes all that stuff better just by being there. Now I'm really looking forward to our upcoming weekend near Detroit. No, it's not actually in Detroit. I'm sure that where we'll be has been nice more recently than when it was a forest.

YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A PRETTY FLOWER!!!

So yesterday Teri took me on a Mystery Date (this one, not this one) to the Rose Festival at the Park of Roses in Whetstone Park in Columbus (that's a lot of prepositional phrases). It was very sweet of her, and a good time was had by all (Sparky came with us too). What I did notice is that apparently roses and Rose Festivals bring out the lesbians in droves. Honestly, just being there made me feel even more like a lesbian trapped in a man's body than normal. My inner lesbian just wanted to get gay all over Teri. I controlled myself though. I am a gentleman after all. There was one particular "couple" that looked more manly than me. Just looking at them made me feel effeminate and I wondered to myself if the even more butch of the two had a larger package than me. I honestly don't ever want to get the answer to that question...for a number of reasons, most of which are vomit-inducing. We also discussed Jazz's theory on lesbians that they're just "women in their 40's who have given up on finding a man". Unlike the other lesbian couples, Teri and I went home in her Honda, not in a Subaru. On our way home though I spotted another lesbian couple on a motorcycle (dyke bike?) headed into the park.

No Darren, it's never as nice in real life as you hope it will be. It's a good thing Teri is so hawt to make up for the visual unpleasantness provided by others. She was like sorbet for my eyes. The cinnamon-coated pecans were like cinnamon-coated pecans for my mouth. Delicious. Thanks again for the wonderful mystery date Red.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

There's quite the interesting grudge match going on today, and you might not have even noticed it. As you know, today is Friday the 13th, a bringer of bad luck. When I opened the door to get in my car to head to work this morning, there it was on the door sill staring back at me. Abe Lincoln's bearded mug on the top of the Lucky Penny. Which will win? The day on the calendar or the copper coinage? So far it's too close to call. I guess I have the rest of the day to figure that out.

It's Not So Much The Heat As The Humidity

Three cheers for tired Midwestern summertime cliches! After getting sick of hearing this refrain multiple times every single summer of my life, I've taken it upon myself to beat it into the ground as much as possible to cut other people off at the pass. Sure, it may make me "that guy", but it's less irritating to me than for you to be "that guy". From what I've seen of the temperatures of the upcoming week, it looks like my new hobby is going to be sweating like a whore in church.

Summer may bring oppressive heat, but it's not all bad. This weekend is the Arts Fest, and it has been brought to my attention that, in addition to possibly finding some art I like, there will also be elephant ears. Elephant ears are the best fair food of all time. If you disagree, then you obviously are some sort of retard. Funnel cakes and corn dogs are fantastic in their own ways, but neither one is fit to carry an elephant ear's jock strap. Okay, so food probably doesn't need a jock strap, but I imagine that an elephant ear would be near the front of the line for such equipment if it did.

Where am I going with this? What's my point? Where are my pants? I have no idea. This is just me in rare word-vomit form. Since I've never been to the Arts Festival, I'm not quite sure what to expect. However, my best guess is that, even with the summer fair food, there will be much less of a white trash atmosphere than you get at carnivals and such. As much as I dislike hanging out in the presence of white trash, they are fascinating to watch from a distance. Mayhap Teri and I will need to hit some podunk small town carnival/fair later in the summer for that activity. It's been a while since I've been asked "You ain't from around here are you boy?". Good times.

A Poem...Sort Of


Red

I’ll skip your hair, it’s easy, it’s for strangers.
Your shirt with the hat
The stopping when it’s time
The raspberries that flavor your favorite drink
Your lips when they’re not being pink
The roses that surround you
The accents of the car that first night
My heart I gave you
The back right of your closet
Your fun shoes
The shirt you wore with them in the picture you sent
My love for you
My pain if I lost you
The strawberries I’ll fight your dad for
The cherries you gave me at the cookout
My favorite for last:
Your face when you blush.

Yeah, It's That Tasty

So everyone knows that bacon is just about the best meat to ever meat a meat...or something. Even if ham and sausage didn't exist, bacon would still be enough reason for me to never be kosher or halal. So why such a redundancy in this post? I found this This gem of a picture online that speculates what bacon is really made out of. I think it's a pretty close guess.



That brings up a good point. We all know that the regular bacon that comes from pigs already tastes like some sort of magical magicness. Unicorns are also magic though, so what if we could harvest bacon from a unicorn? How good would a magical meat from a magical animal be? Freakin' awesome, that's how good! I think that's why unicorns have a horn. To protect their bacon from people. They know darn well that we'd be at their bellies to get their tasty, extra magical bacon.

I'm probably going to have to have some bacon at lunch today. I'm fine with that arrangement.

My Girlfriend Went Halfsies on a Titty Bar??

So there's this ghetto strip club (The Diamond Lounge--super classy) that I drive past on my morning commute every day. Over the past couple weeks I've noticed a change to the sign out front. It says something to the effect of

Under New Management
Teresa & Jazz!!

I suspect that "Jazz" might be some sort of nickname for Jen that I haven't heard yet, but I'm not sure about that part. Also, ampersands and exclamation points are punctuation marks Teri has been wont to use before. The clues are all there right on the sign. The thought has occurred to me that it might be two different people altogether whom I've never met who own such a classy establishment (it does indeed put the 'lassy' in 'classy' in case a certain couple reads this) and not Teri and Jen. It does seem shocking that she wouldn't have told me something about this by now, though I do remember not much being said when a job interview happened, so she might not want to jinx the new bidness. Hmmm. It would seem that further sleuthing is in order. Either way, I do believe that there's a good chance that Jen now has the new nickname of Jazz. I hope she's fine with that.

Now my blog has officially been updated. :)

Now? Is It now? How 'Bout Now? Now? Is It Now? Now? Now?

So it seems like most of the decisions I've made in my life, at least the important ones, have followed the same theme of deferring what I really want so that the future will be better. I really do feel like there are some really big changes ahead in the near future, and that's all kinds of exciting. Maybe I'll finally get to reap some benefits of past decisions. Yeah, I still don't know where things are going or what the time line might look like or even where my pants are right now, but I know that God is good and that the path he has me on right now is much better than the one I'd have picked. The only downside I've noticed is that I wish there were more hours in the day to do everything I want/need to do right now and that I had the energy to take advantage of that extra time. Isn't perfectionism great? I do suppose that when I finally get to leave Titanic Publications that will free up some time. One more thing to look forward to.

Wow. Just Wow.

This is one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard of. It really doesn't help the mental picture I have of San Francisco, which I've never been to. Is there really anyone in the world who says to themselves "I'd be a Christian if Jesus just looked better in a banana hammock."? I'm really not even sure what to do with that.

If You Really Want a Thick Jesus You'll Have to Add More Flour

Last night on my way home from work I saw a personalized plate that read THK GZUS. Thick Jesus? I'm all for people personalizing their cars and/or license plates. However, there's a point where it just becomes ridiculous. Spinning rims live at that point along with fart can mufflers, flames (this doesn't apply to bona fide hot rods; they're allowed) and cryptic personalized plates. If you're going to have a plate that at first glance has been customized then its meaning should also be exceedingly clear. Otherwise people might think that you really like a thicker Jesus on your mashed potatoes.

For the record, I'm sure that THK GZUS = thank Jesus, which is a good sentiment to be advertising.

I Need to Be More Careful

I haven't even started to fully implement my tax seduction strategy (I still have to buy the candles and massage oils) and already America is throwing money around like it was in a rap video. (After all, somebody's gotta make it rain in the club.) I need be more careful or our national debt could end up being a thousand times larger than it already is. Hell, America is even giving money back to people who didn't even pay taxes. That's not a rebate at that point, it's welfare. Who knew I had such strong powers of seduction? If I stuck to my original plan, I fear that America would give back everyone's money and the Grand Canyon would turn into a giant rain forest from America being so wet. I'm scaling back my plans for everyone's benefit. You're all welcome.

Isn't She a Bit Young to Be Married?

...is what I thought about a girl I saw at church yesterday. (Her left arm was on the back of the chair around her husband, and I couldn't help but notice the ring.) But then I had the thought: maybe I am just getting too old to be single. I've bitched and moaned about being single before, but it's never popped into my mind worded like that. What does it mean? I dunno...

So Old It Farts Dust

I wrote the post below over 10 years ago (as is evident by it being written the week following her death). I could write it better now, but it still amuses me the way it is (though I did take this occasion to clean up some of the punctuation). I would have posted this a long time ago, but I only recently found it when I was looking for a different file on my old computer.

No, I didn't hate Princess Di. I really didn't care one way or the other about her. What I couldn't stand though was the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the media over her death that went on for weeks. Meanwhile, there was barely a mention when Mother Theresa died shortly thereafter. I guess she wasn't young and pretty enough to garner more attention.

The Princess Who Lived Up To Her Name

Last Saturday night when I heard that Princess Di had died I was stunned. I mean, I was almost as surprised as the time when I was 6 years old and came home from school to find out my dog had died. Yes, these tragedies are on the same level. Well, maybe I was more upset when my dog died, but that's beside the point. On the news, they kept saying how Di was being followed by Paparazzi before the car crashed. I was outraged at this. I mean, just because the guy is one of the three tenors and is a famous opera singer doesn't give him the right to follow anybody around on a motorcycle. And you know it had to be a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Have you seen the size of this guy? The only motorcycle that he could ride is a hog. My question is this: How many more famous people have to die because of these out-of-control opera singers before we take a stand against their senseless violence? I never thought I'd say this, but the world of opera has become as violent as the world of rap.

Quite the Spectacle!

I finally got around to getting a relatively decent picture of my new reading glasses. I tried to get some pictures of them on me, but there were focusing issues with those, so this is what you get. Here they are sitting on a piece of paper.


They have a little more "chic" than my old reading glasses, but they still have the same amount of "geek". I know it's just been tearing you up on the inside wondering what the new glasses looked like. You need be torn up no longer.

P.S. Click the pic to embiggen it.