Monday, February 23, 2009

An Upcoming Milestone

I write this at what I hope to be the absolute low point of the negotiations as to what me and my wife hope to do for our fifteen year anniversary. It's gone from a lost weekend in Vegas to lunch. Rax I suggested? This got me banished downstairs and onto the computer.

That's right, fifteen years! You,.. the kid who stumbled upon this blog after looking for the latest on Hannah Montanna (15 years ago that mention was Debbie Gibson), YOU weren't even around then.

Let me be clear, I forget dates very easily. My wife bought me a datebook once to keep track of important events - I lost it. Oh how I wished I was there as some stranger picked it up hoping to see the secret life of a Wall Street power broker or a busy doctor only to see entries like "Tuesday - tape Bugs Bunny marathon, buy Zingers at the store".

But this date had my attention for a while. I can remember aspiring to a trip to Europe for our 10th. Surely, I thought at the time, only a total LOON wouldn't be able to save up for that milestone with the time I gave us? Well, call me Mr. Loon. But fifteen years gave me pause for reflection. We had to do something special.

I initially wanted a visit to Vegas. Our last trip to Vegas was sort of a family outing. My wife was pregnant with our three year old at the time. We had found out only weeks before. We would have won at one of the tables but the baby kicked and ruined my pefect pair of 6's. Not buying it? Well, neither did the pit boss. What a time, she was eating for two and I was doing my part and drinking for two. Ah memories. No really.....I'm sad about that, I have no memories. GOD I was toasted. But I digress.

The issue is, what do we do with our daughter. Our daughter means the world to us but I want one night where we can just be us again. So it's gone from Vegas, to a weekend at a nice hotel, to now dinner. I had to stress dinner to my wife. We both have off that day and she suggested a nice lunch. Lunch? So fifteen years and it's "hoagies for two?!". No way, it will be nice and memorable or my name isn't,...isn't...wait..you know I really should get into a program. I haven't a clue what my name is, or that talking rabbit next to me either.

The bottom line is I want it to be special because for some reason unbeknownst to me, the man upstairs decided to do one giant thing right for me and pointed me towards someone who would become my best friend and the mother of my little 3-year old angel who is my light and never ending joy. Fifteen years isn't much when you think of our parents, but you can't swing a dead cat today without finding someone who's been through a divorce. Oh and by the way, beating someone with a dead cat at least in this state is DEFINITE grounds for divorce. Anybody can have a wife, I have a partner and a friend. And on top of that, a friend who'll look the other way as I steal a $20 from her purse. Ah, amour!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Well said..........

I happened to be looking at a Cleveland Browns blog online and right after the Steelers won their sixth Super Bowl they were just beside themselves with hate. Over and over, the theme was, our greatest crime being Steeler fans was our pride. How dare we be proud of this great city and the wonderful people who inhabit it. Sorry Cleveland and haters everywhere, you're just going to have to get used to it. I hope I don't get into trouble, but this is from an Orlando (NOT Pittsburgh) newspaper.

Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel

TAMPA, Fla.

One of the heroes of the game nearly became a bus driver.

The owner of the team walks to work every day.

The fans of the team drink Iron City beer, wave dish towels and

ignored the slumping economy to make their pigskin pilgrimage and

turn the Super Bowl into a Sunshine State version of the Steel City.

This is why we should all be glad that Pittsburgh is now the home of

more Super Bowl championships than any franchise in the history of

pro football: Because the players are hungry, the owner is humble and

the fans are loyal.What more could you want out of the NFL’s

champion of champions?

And what more could you want from a Super Bowl?

From Jennifer Hudson’s remarkable rendition of the national anthem

Sunday to the Boss bringing down the house at halftime to Santonio

Holmes making one of the greatest catches in NFL history for the

winning touchdown with 35 seconds left, this will go down as a Super

Bowl for the ages.

The Steelers, by virtue of their unbelievable, inconceivable 27-23

defeat of the Arizona Cardinals, have now won a record sixth Super

Bowl and their second in four years.They are small-market team that doesn’t

pay big-time salaries and yet they continue to win ... and win ... and win.

In these trying economic times, how can you not feel good that it’s the

Steelers who have become the model franchise in all of professional sports.

Some other of the NFL’s other dynastic franchises have come and gone,

but the Steelers just keep coming.

The Green Bay Packers? They haven’t won a Super Bowl in more than a

decade. The San Francisco 49ers? They haven’t had a winning season in

six years and haven’t been to a Super Bowl in 15.

The Dallas Cowboys? They make headlines because their quarterback

dates Jessica Simpson and their wide receiver is a team cancer, but

they haven’t won a playoff game in a dozen years. In contrast,

Pittsburgh’s quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is the youngest

quarterback (26) to ever win two Super Bowls, and the only

controversy star wide receiver Hines Ward has been involved in is

that opposing defenses complain that he plays too physical.

The Steelers are the New York Yankees of the NFL — without the

arrogance and the payroll. George Steinbrenner buys championships;

the Rooney family builds them.Every one of Pittsburgh’s star players —

Roethlisberger, Troy Polamalu, Willie Parker, Hines Ward and

James Harrison — were either drafted by the team or discovered off the street.

Harrison, with his spectacular 100-yard interception return at the

end of the first half, made one the greatest plays in Super Bowl history.

He was undrafted out of college, signed as a rookie free agent by the

Steelers in 2002 and nearly quit football during his struggling early

years to become a Greyhound bus driver.

This is why the Steelers should be celebrated. They win without the

knuckleheads that dot so many professional rosters.

This is a franchise built on patience and principal.

Take Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin as an example.

At 36, he became the youngest coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl.

It should be noted that Tomlin is only the third coach the Rooneys

have hired in 40 years. Remember when the Orlando Magic once had

three coaches in the same calendar year?

Proof positive that if you can’t appreciate the Steelers, you are

simply un-American.

Friday, February 13, 2009

I still got it!!

You know, no matter how strong of a relationship you're in, at some point you have to wonder, do I still have "it". To tell you the truth, it's been so long I don't really know what "it" is anymore. I have a feeling it harkens back to a time when I could lie in bed and immediately jump out when I felt like it and not stay there and plot which limb to move first that doesn't make my back hurt. That's not age, it's our mattress, Sealy's Torture-Master 2000.

No really, what about the girls I was attracted to in high school. Do they still remember me, have they even thought of me once in the years since I last saw them, and do their hastily arranged "orders of protection" still hold? There are a few websites I went to out of curiosity, and that weren't blocked by Net Nanny, that allow people to reconnect and constantly beat you over the head with "Guess who's searching for you now!". One of them is Classmates.com and the other is Reunion.com.

With Classmates.com you pretty much get a Xerox image of the dorks, dweebs, and overall pinheads you had no interest in while going to school and now see that YOU are amoung that group now who's actually inputted your name in their crummy site. "Hey! Look it's...ah...FAT kid...and....Math Geek...I wonder what THEY're doing now?".

The other is Reunion.com and they torment you with "Guess who's looking for you now...wink wink, nudge nudge?". I got time, I check. You'll see that if I decide to fork over the money to join this Ponzi scheme for social retards, I get to meet up with the people who've searched for me! One of them, lucky lucky me, is a SIXTY FIVE YEAR OLD woman from Bangor Pennsylvania. Bangor? No thanks. "Bah dum boom PEEESH!!".

Monday, February 2, 2009

Next, I need to ride in a helicopter

I always wanted to ride in a limo. Wait, let me clarify, I always wanted to ride in a limo sitting up and not in a casket, which is how I thought i'd eventually end up in one. But on a sales trip for work I had a limo ride too and from the resort they put me up in. Pretty sweet.

Yesterday, I scratched something ELSE off my list. I got to ride in an ambulance. This one, I could have done without.

It all started with a pretty normal saturday. I had a bunch of errands to run and I finished off with a trip to the grocery store. When I got home, I started to watch TV. I started to feel a little nauscious and I ended up with a few ugly trips to the bathroom. I had a couple episodes of the squirts.

When I went to lay down for the night, I had trouble slowing my breathing down. I decided to go sit in the living room for a while and watch TV just in case I had to make any more bathroom runs (hehehe...runs...get it?). The more I sat the worse I felt. My breathing would not slow down. I had numbness down both my arms and they were both tingling. My body, if felt like, would not rest. It was in alarm.

I started to moan which brought my wife out to see me. She asked me over and over again if there was anything she could do to help me. As much as I appreciated her, I couldn't give her any ideas. I started to feel even worse. I knew something was up. So she ended up calling my sister, who is a nurse, to come over in case we needed to head to the hospital.

After my sister was called, I knew I did need to go and my wife ended up calling 911. The first to arrive was the police. A policeman came in and asked me a few questions. I was terrified. I felt like my body was shutting down and I had no idea why. He instructed me to calm down or I was going to pass out. Truth be told, I would have preffered that. At least then I could get some rest.

The paramedics showed up and put all manner of gadget on me to monitor my breathing and heart. They tried repeately to assist me in slowing my breathing down. No luck. Finally they decided to just take me to the E.R. They told me they could take me out but the steps and driveway were very icey. I told them the guy who takes care of that sucks. That guy being me of course. So they helped me walk out to the ambulance.

I got strapped in and off we went to the E.R. Still couldn't breath normally though. I thought it was food poisoning but the medic thought it was a wicked stomach flu going around. She asked me if I feld nauscious and that was good timing because almost as soon as she gave me a plastic bucket I hurled into it very very violently. I thought my lungs were coming out.

After that I started to feel better but then she told me that it probably would return. Which it did, in the E.R. By the time I got to the E.R. I was just exhausted. No sleep, and my body was just a wreck. I couldn't get back to normal breathing and on top of this, I had to answer bullshit questions for a secretary asking me questions. I wanted to scream "You know what, my wife is out there....get my social from HER!".

They ended up putting me on some sort of nausea medication through an IV and finally I was able to close my eyes for a bit. If this was a flu, I might just have to change my policy of never getting a flu shot. I didn't want this ever again.

About 4:30 in the morninig I felt good enough to leave and they gave me a few prescriptions for nausea and the mother of all anti-diahrrea medicines too, Nopoopatall, i think it was called.

So Sunday, a day I had planned to make chicken wings, eat my wife's fabulous meatballs and just pig out while watching my Pittsburgh Steelers win their 6th Super Bowl, I ended up spending most of the day in bed with the chills. With the team they have, maybe I'll be lucky enough to see that again, healthy this time.