Wearing Ties: Day 17

I've got on my Sunday best, today!  We went to this crazy large plant store, Merrifield Garden Center, to get one final plant for the front yard to balance it out.  Now, we just need one more and we should be good to go.  It was our first time to this garden center though, and it was really neat.  It looked like they had the indoor section divided up so that different people rent out sections of it.  We bought a bottle of wine, called Phantom, from one such place.  We plan on drinking it closer to Halloween.  The place was also selling hot dogs in the parking lot and offering hay rides around the, paved, grounds.  It was everything I wanted and more from a plant place.

About the tie, which I'm conveniently covering up with our new mum, the majestic paisley pattern camouflages a large coffee stain  right down the middle of it.  I think I got this one from my mom, but I did get another batch of ties from my in-laws yesterday.  I'm going to have more ties by the end of this than I'll know what to do with!  I love it though and I hope they keep coming!  I'm not sure from whom, but... that's beside the point.

Wearing Ties: Day 16

I spent most of the day planting stuff in the yard - and trying to unplant a certain stump - so for the second Saturday in a row, I had to make up a reason to wear a tie.  So I took the wife out for a hot date.  We went to a local diner/sports bar called 55's, which has been my favorite place to eat since we moved to the area.  I had Jeff's Steak-and-Cheese, which in their new menu is described as "A Local Favorite!" and my wife had Katie's Elle Mae Breakfast, complete with the best flapjacks in town.  As you can tell by the picture, it was delicious and made for the perfect date, followed by a trip to the super-Target.

The flapjacks really are the best!

Wearing Ties: Day 15

Today I went to a play, Little Shop of Horrors, all dressed up with tie and sweater vest.  I want to have fun with the tie-wearing campaign, but I'm not trying to make a mockery of the dress code and decorum at my work, so I was a little nervous wearing the vest to work, which I did even though it was jersey day (not that I own any jersies).  Turns out it was really, really comfortable.  It was so comfortable, in fact, that I took the afternoon off and decided not to change out of my shirt and tie and vest.  I'm starting to really like the feeling of being dressed up... for better or for worse.

I do want to write a blog post about it... hopefully in the next couple of days.

Something Sweet in the Rain

It rained today, but I still made my way to the lake for lunch. I like going to the lake when it rains because you can see a difference in the water level after just a morning of rain. The higher water cleans up the place too, it makes it look healthier and more like the pristine recreational lake that it wants to be.

Unfortunately, I had to stay in the car and watch the rain on the windshield blur the autumn leaves. It wasn’t so bad though… how hard can life be when you are enjoying a fantastic Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich? Plus, I’ve added something new to my lunch. Well, I’m not sure if “new” is the appropriate word for something that brings back so many memories.

When I was a kid, my lunch usually included a peanut butter sandwich (no jelly), cheese bits (which I think we’re either Cheez-its, or knock off Cheez-its, but in my head they were “cheese bits”), a bought box of milk (which all too often would go unopened), and some form of Little Debbie.

My Mom, and later my Dad, would only buy one kind at a time, so it was really a crapshoot as to what you were getting from week to week. Star Crunches were typical. They were always good, but somehow a little too crunchy. And crunch isn’t always what you want from your lunch ender. Oatmeal pies were also common, but they were always somewhat of a disappointment. I can picture myself rolling my eyes and swinging my arm in a grandiose “aww, shucks” kind of way upon discovering the light-brown oatmeal pie. Granted, I didn’t have any trouble eating them, but they always lacked a certain something, namely chocolate. That’s why all the good days, back in grade school, always included a Fudge Round.

The Fudge Round might just be the ultimate in lunchtime sweetness. It’s soft and moist, frighteningly close to gooey for such a pre-packaged treat. It’s richly chocolate without being disgustingly sweet. It’s satisfying in its single package, marking the perfect end to the perfect lunch, with just enough to look forward to for the next lunch.

Plus, they are one of the few things that I am never tempted to eat apart from lunch. Even growing up I don’t remember sneaking in and grabbing one, from the bottom cupboard under the microwave. In my head, they are strictly for bagged lunches and nothing else. My wife suggested taking some in the car for a long car ride, and I had to fight my instincts to agree to it.

I’m not sure if the Fudge Round will be a permanent addition to my lunch, but I am definitely going to enjoy them while I have them. Something is telling me to give Oatmeal Pies a second chance though…

Wearing Ties: Day 14

I was instructed to dance for this picture.

Today, I'm wearing a purple tie that a coworker gave me.  It's actually pretty nice.  Tiff suggested wearing a black belt with it, which I didn't think I was supposed to do with khaki, but it was an easy enough switch.

I think I'm definitely having an effect at work.  Today, I overheard a conversation about me (I think) that went something like this:

Person 1: I just want to smack him when I see him wearing a tie.
Person 2: Oh well, waah waah waahh... (I couldn't hear this person too clearly.)
Person 1: Oh no, I mean that in a good way... we should all be dressing like that!

I usually try not to listen in to other people's conversations, but my ears pricked up when I heard mention of my tie, and I'm glad I did.  Because we should all be dressing like this.

The painting on the wall behind me is my wife's.  She sells art.  The picture on the other side is seven and a half years old... before we had a digital camera and could take unlimited pictures....

Wearing Ties: Day 13

Here I am enjoying a seasonal beverage after a long day at work.  There must be a cold front coming through as I was inclined to put on my elbow-padded corduroy jacket after work.  That book I'm reading, it's Challenging Essays in Modern Thought published in 1928.  It is awesome.  I just got it from the library book sale along with a whole bag full of similar gems all for $2.  I have to read them all though before the next book sale at the library on November 5th!  Which means, I've got some readin' to do.

Today was a pretty big day in my month-long tie campaign.  While I did not wear my way-cool jacket to work, which would take some major cahones, I did receive not one but two gifts of ties today!  It was a glorious days and while some ties were goofy, there are many, many winners to choose from.  It is very exciting!

Wearing Ties: Day 12

I made this one big, just to see if I like it.  I'm not talking on the phone in this pictured  It's only staged... to make me look like the important person that I am.  This is what our new kitchen, or well, dining room looks like.

Check out the ads by the way... they should all be tie related.  I hope to become THE tie destination.

Wearing Ties: Day 11

I had the day off today, so there was no need to get dressed up.  I took this picture of myself in the mirror right after a trip to the grocery store.  Most strangers, unfortunately, don't think twice about seeing someone wearing a tie.  Kids are the exception; they look at you differently.  I thought that it was something akin to respect, but today I began to suspect that they are just seeing an age gap that they don't understand and has nothing to do with respect.

Wearing Ties: Day Ten

Today being Sunday, I thought I would just relax in my study by the fire.

Wearing Ties: Day Nine

Here I am at Sears with my gift of myrrh.  October 9th and the Christmas trees are twinkling!  I don't even know what I'm going to be for Halloween yet.  Heck, it's Columbus Day weekend... shouldn't I be busy honoring Christopher Columbus?

I decided to take this picture because it shows I got out and about wearing the tie, whereas all these pictures just show me wearing a tie in front of my newly painted dining room wall.

Wearing Ties: Day 8

Another not so great picture of me, as I think the camera focused on the cat, but I think it's the first time our cat's daily leg-scratch for a greeting has been captured by cameras.  Today's tie is god-awfully ugly.  People at work were clearly unsure what to say about it.  It was also the first tie all month that I've had difficulty tying.  It took me almost ten minutes just to figure out how to get the knot to look right!

The shirt though is the real story.  It might look super fancy, and in truth it probably once was.  But, along with the passenger seat in my car, it was victim to the Great Meatball Debacle of 2009 and still carries scars on the left cuff.  The Great Meatball Debacle of 2009 is similar only to the Great Coffee Fiasco of 2003 in terms of damage inflicted.  Both have taken quite some time to get over.

Wearing Ties: Day 7

Eventually I'll write a real post.  Today though, the shirt trumped the tie.  This has got to be the most comfortable shirt I own, minus the occasional choking sensation.  In news, I had to do some work in the sun with my tie on.  Yep, I put some extra air in my tires.  It was time.

Wearing Ties: Day 6

This isn't the greatest of pictures of me, but I think it captures the essence of the tie.  Yep, it's covered in sunflowers!

Wearing Ties: Day 5

Today, I went back to work after taking yesterday off for traveling.  It looks like I need to learn to straighten my tie and maybe comb my hair, and wind up the hose.

Wearing Ties: Day 4

Perhaps this is cheating a bit as this is from the early hours of Monday morning after a grand time was had by all at the wedding reception.  Officially taken on Monday though.  Plus, I could not have imagined wearing a tie on the day after this.

Wearing Ties: Day 3

This is me rocking the suspenders for the first time ever.  I wanted to look my best for a friend's wedding.  Mission accomplished on that.

Wearing Ties: Day 2



Road tripping with a tie on.  I believe this picture was taken near the Delaware Memorial Bridge.  I wore my wrinkliest tie-worthy shirt for this long day in the car.

I'm Wearing Ties

Today, I decided to wear a tie to work.

In the two-plus years, I’ve been with my current job, I’ve never worn a tie to work, and I’ve only seen one other person ever wear a tie, and he’s an important person who attends important meetings. I’m not so much either of those things and almost everyone assumed that I would be leaving work early to go to a job interview or a funeral… it was my own little litmus test of sorts, are you an optimist or a pessimist?

Truthfully, I’ve decided to wear a tie everyday for a month. When I started telling my coworkers this, they didn’t believe me (and thought it a little strange). A few reached the conclusion that I’ve been reading leadership books instructing me to dress for the position and respect that I desire. That sounded pretty good, so I almost ran with it as soon as they said it. But that's not the truth.  It would be neat though to see if I’m treated any differently while I’m wearing a tie and if over the course of the month, I start to act differently. On day one, for instance, right out of the gates I felt more assertive and had no trouble expressing my opinions.

Unfortunately, my reason is simply that I just felt like wearing a tie.

It sounds a bit like my old monthly sacrifices, but those have become passé and have fallen to the wayside. I’m having enough trouble just posting for this blog! I hope to include a new picture of myself, with a tie, everyday for a month right here on the Muted Guerrilla, so be sure to check me out! We’ll see how I do.

After making the decision last night that I would go forward with this challenge though, I went to my closet to inspect my many ties. For someone who never wears ties, I have acquired quite the collection. But, the wrench in my plans, if you take out all the ties that have cartoon characters on them and the ones with Santa Claus and his ilk on them, it suddenly becomes a much less impressive number. I may need to stock up on some run-of-the-mill ties.

I mention my tie dilemma in hopes of getting a package from home, or anywhere else I suppose, but I predict the true problem that I’ll run into is with the shirts as I only own a handful of tie-worthy shirts. And while I don’t mind ties from second-hand stores, dress shirts are more often misses than hits. I may end up having to spend a bit of money if this is going to be a success.

Pizza Hut: Fail

I’ve spent the past few nights searching for the beloved children’s book, Ira Sleeps Over. My wife needs it for work. I have never heard of this book and have no idea what the story is about (although I could take a guess), but I am confident that it is beloved. Who knew that it would be so hard to find though. Borders didn’t have it. Target didn’t have it. Barnes and Noble said they had one copy but it was nowhere to be found. Ira Sleeps Over must be one hot commodity!

The search was exhaustive and taking much longer than anticipated, so my wife and I pulled into a Pizza Hut for dinner. Pizza Hut is quick and easy. Sometimes it’s really nice to know what to expect from a place, which is always the case with Pizza Hut. The only decisions you have to make are which toppings to get and if we should spring for breadsticks. After eight years of living together, the toppings my wife and I choose are almost automatic, and on this night, the breadsticks were what drew us into the restaurant.

A quick side note before the impending disappointment: Domino’s recent recipe renovation is pretty tasty, and right now, they have a deal going for $5.99 for a medium pizza. The cheap frozen pizzas that are edible start out around $4.50 and can cost as much as $10! Plus, with Domino’s, it’s not DiGiorno; it’s delivery.

Anyways, back to Pizza Hut, so we order our pizza, half pepperoni and onion – half pineapple and olive and our breadsticks. The place is somewhat crowded so we watch people come and sit down, we watch as they get their breadsticks. When our pizza comes out, I ask the waitress to cancel our order of breadsticks. She apologizes and walks off. A few seconds later, I got up to get her attention as our order was wrong. It looked like half of it had all of our toppings and the other half was just cheese.

When they took it away, I thought they would put a rush on our order. Instead, they returned a few minutes later to let us know that it could take a while. At this point, I reordered our breadsticks. When they came, we ate them up quickly as they were delicious. My mind started relaxing a bit and I wanted to make a point to apologize to the waitress if I seemed annoyed earlier. Mistakes happen.

I didn’t see our waitress for another forty minutes, during which time my wife and I started talking about what headache pills we had at home. When the waitress finally did appear, this is what she said, “I don’t know what they’re doing back there but they’ve made three pizzas and none of them have been right.” We got up and left.

As I was walking out I started to wonder what they did with screwed-up pizzas, at that point I wish I had just eaten the cheese pizza. Hell, even the other half with olives and whatnot wouldn’t have been so bad. But today, some time after the events, the thing that bugs me the most is the response from the waitress.  I don't care who's fault it is... I just want pizza.  The fault can be yours and yours alone, but I guarantee that if you recognize the problem and react to it it won't be nearly as bad as you think it is.  I'm also easily won over with more breadsticks.

We did have places to go too.  We weren't sure when the library closed and we wanted to check it out on the off chance that they would have the beloved Ira Sleeps Over.  I figure if no national chain bookstore had it, there really wasn't much of a chance that the public library would carry it, but lo and behold they did!  And multiple copies too!

My wife created a butterfly out of a caterpillar. It’s magic!

She started out with a black and yellow caterpillar that likes to eat big green leaves of a plant called milkweed. Interesting note about milkweed: the stuff is poisonous to most animals, but caterpillars love it. It doesn’t take much encouragement for them to eat, as they don’t have much else to do. Which brings me to a cautionary point, keep in mind that when things are eaten something has to come out the other end. Beware of copious amounts of pooh while creating a butterfly. Interesting note about copious amounts of pooh: skin mites live in your bed mattress subsisting on the dead skin that you lose each night; they poop five times their bodyweight each and every day.

Anyways, eventually the caterpillar decides enough is enough and begins to look for a place to hang himself.  Then in a fit of rage, this happens:

Then the caterpillar just hangs out for a week or so, while the magic happens; and while spectators are left to wonder “what’s he doin’ in there?” Then the vivid green and gold of the cocoon begin to fade, revealing what is inside!

And from the caterpillar’s cocoon, emerges a beautiful butterfly that can fly and soar and be free and land on a nearby fence…

 And a jungle gym…

And a hand…

 Until it flies and flies and flies.

All the way to butterfly heaven, which is somewhere in Central America.  All-in-all, just like honey and maple syrup, it’s pure magic.

Walling Off Traffic

I’m not a big fan of traffic. I hate the stuff. Ironically, all the traffic that I encounter in my suburban commute is due to road construction meant to alleviate traffic. Whatever… maybe it makes sense.

What doesn’t make sense is building houses right next to busy, traffic-filled, 60-mph roads. There are probably a half-dozen neighborhoods that back up to my commute – each with several homes that I can see into from my car, granted very briefly. I don’t understand people who live in these homes. They must have gotten a good deal.

What makes even less sense is that a number of them have built these fancy patios or decks. Maybe they enjoy their location and think of it as box seats to a show. They sit out and watch the traffic… with their news radio on listening for traffic updates. Hey, it beats NASCAR.

Of course I’m kidding, and apparently the residents of these homes are thinking along the same lines as me. In the past few weeks, I’ve gotten to watch as three of these neighborhoods on my daily route have erected giant privacy walls between them and me, the commuter.

I’ve seen them before on the side of major highways, but after seeing their slow progression, I must admit that I didn’t realize how big they actually are. Or, how big things are that build big things. Or, that anyone would ever think to paint a giant wall brown.

So now those poor people are backed up against a giant wall. The relief from the noise and stream of headlights I can only imagine is worth it, but now you have this giant wall in your backyard. It seems like a lose-lose situation to me. I mean, my commute feels different and I’m usually flying by these walls without much thought, I’m sure that if you live there, life has to be different as well… much more guarded and protected.

In fact, I bet you that a study on kids that grow up next to giant walls as opposed to kids that don’t would prove that there are huge differences, like in racquetball ability. Although it won’t take too many over-hit balls before it starts affecting traffic.

Note: Sorry for the lame post. I’ve had the idea of these big walls for a couple of weeks now, but I have no idea what to call them, let alone what to say about them. If I only had a roving reporter, then I could get someone else to write about it, and do some investigating, like who paid for these giant walls, and what does the homeowners have to say about them, and are there any world-famous racquetballers who grew up in their shadows. Maybe they could do a “Day in the Life of” type piece about the painter of the giant wall. And of course there would be pictures. Ahhh… someday, maybe someday.

The Mutant Guerrilla!!

At some point in the year – it seems to change every year – my parents unleash the family newsletter. This year along with it, they unwittingly released the Mutant Guerrilla! Rehaarr! That’s right – mothers collect your kids – there’s a Mutant Guerrilla on the loose! Rehaarr!

A local man reacted to the news saying, “Mutant Guerrilla, eh? They usually don’t stray this far from the smelly bogs. (He) must be hungry.”

The Mutant Guerrilla. I love it! Rehaarr! Apparently on top of writing the wonderfully insightful Muted Guerrilla blog, I also maintain the Mutant Guerrilla, which I can only assume is much angrier and uses more capital letters. REHAARR! Yep, it must be one of those smelly blogs.

I’m not sure if everyone’s family has a similar experience, but in my family, the annual family update is a practice in wishing the worst upon your siblings. The picture and description of you will undoubtedly be embarrassing, but as long as someone else’s is worse, you’re golden.

Actually, that’s not true. While I bemoan the letter with everyone, each year I secretly hope that I look like a deformed Batman villain, the zanier the better. It’s my only chance of standing out, and I like to be noticed… from afar. The picture that comes to my mind is one, from a few years back, taken when I had a temperature of well over a hundred and I hadn’t shower in a week or so.  I was smiling though, so it worked for my Mom.

In fact, maybe next year the picture of me will be unrecognizable.  Long-lost friends and distant family members will open next year's newsletter and wonder when the Duffy's adopted a thirty year old man who appears almost like a mutant guerrilla.

All that being said, I only hope that everyone enjoys the Muted Guerrilla as much as my parents do.

Tabbin' It Up

If you want something done, it’s best to do it. I think that’s how the saying goes at least, and a truer statement has never been said. My intern Jeff has dilly-dallied far too long in revamping the Muted Guerrilla, so I’ve taken the project up myself.

The color and layout is in a test phase right now and is subject to change without notification. You have been warned. I’m currently trying out a color that is referred to as “the color of that shirt that I don’t like but still wear” which, at the moment, I kind of like.

There are also a few new features of blogger that have become available, which I hope to implement cautiously, as I do not want to overload the reader. The first of these fine advancements you would come to if, like me, you are a practicing Mutedguerrillologist is tabs.

While tabs can be used effectively in the right format, I’m not sure it’s suited for my write-whatever-the-hell-I-feel-like approach. But as a testament to my never-ending quest to perfection, I’ve included them for you to appreciate and reference as needed, provided that you feel blessed to be living at a time when tabs have become a reality.

Currently we have two tabs for you, an About the Author tab and a Frequently Asked Question tab... both of which are still under construction.

Frustration Begets Inspiration

The lake where I eat lunch often has been as peaceful and relaxing as ever lately, with the exception of one thing. Now that summer has passed and the boat rental booth is closed for the season, people are starting to assume that the well-placed man in business attire, who is eating his lunch in the shade by the lake, would know how to rent a boat on such a beautiful day.

Well, I don’t, so stop asking.

This has become somewhat of a daily occurrence, which only annoys me in that I don’t have an answer for them. Today, two groups asked me this, along with a multitude of follow up questions, which I answered as best I could. I tried to be friendly with my answers, but when an older gentleman struck me with “well, do you know the number we can call to find out?” in a tone usually reserved for customer service hotlines, I decided to drop all pretenses of being helpful. With a bigger smile, I repeated my opening line, “Sorry, I don’t work here,” but this time I ended the sentence there.

While I returned to my lunch, I now had more to chew on than another perfectly-crafted Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich. People can sometimes annoy me, hence my daily trip to the quiet of the lake. But, if you think about something long enough, some good’s got to come out of it. Yep, frustration begets inspiration:

Front

Back

Not Staff by johntduffy

See more t-shirts created on zazzle

That’s funny to me.

I'll have to find a way to darken my wife's sketch on the front, but I have a strange feeling that this will not be the last time that A Portrait of Me finds his way onto a T-Shirt. One can only hope.

Brilliant Game Show

Not to find genius where, clearly, there is none, but that’s (meaning my last post which I just posted today)not a bad idea for a Game Show.

Let’s say the game involves six contestants. Each person is given $1000 dollars. In the first round, everyone secretly bids for something small – let’s say a twenty dollar gift-card to Chuck E. Cheese – and the top five bids win the prize.

The next round has those five people competing for a better prize – let’s say a brand new Kodak digital camera – with their remaining money. Like if I bid $50 to win the $20 gift card, I would only have $950 to bid this round.

And so on and so forth through prizes like a $500 gift certificate courtesy of http://www.tiffanyduffy.com/, a fully loaded 2011 BMW Z-series, and finally the grand prize, season tickets to DC United! That’d be awesome.

I’m not sure if there are any game shows like that, but if there aren’t, I’m laying claim to this one. Maybe I should contact my local broadcaster and see about making this a reality. I could be the next Bob Barker!

Dreaming of an Audience

I don’t want to start detailing every dream I have, however rare they are, but after revealing yesterday’s one-of-a-kind dream to my esteemed audience, last night I dreamt of (to my knowledge) two-thirds of this very audience. It’s quick and makes absolutely no sense, but I thought I’d share.

It begins with a phone call home. My Dad answers and mentions my sister Martha’s whereabouts. In pure disbelief, I end the conversation with my Dad and set out to see my sister first-hand. She and her husband are at a bar playing a game called the Ticket Tree, where you have to outbid people for better tickets. It makes no sense, so don’t worry about the details.

Everyone playing had gotten pretty into the game, none more so than my sister and brother-in-law who were each dressed up like Christmas trees, complete with giant, softball-sized glowing lights wrapped around them.

As the game progressed, and you outbid people, everyone who bid enough to advance had to lift themselves up to higher and higher platforms on the wall. These platforms were set in a triangle, thus the Tree, with the winner getting the best tickets of all. My sister got pretty high up the Ticket Tree before I woke up.

The tickets they were after… field level seats to the Boston Red Sox. I have no idea why they would want them but that’s what it was.

Dream Big, or Don't Dream at All

I read somewhere that the one thing, above all else, that is a sure-fire conversation killer is to start talking about dreams. Apparently, it’s one of the few topics where the listener has zero input. I think of this whenever someone shares one of their dreams, and the result usually involves my eyes glazing over as I’m deep in thought wondering why that is and how I use to like hearing the strangeness of others’ dreams. Ultimately, it’s become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That being said, I had a dream last night. It woke me at 1:40 in the morning with my heart pounding and a sharp pain in my ribs, and it kept me up most of the night after that. Similar to most dreams, some details were fluid and didn’t make much sense, but I’ll do my best to convey the basics of one of the greatest dream of all time.

It starts out with me being the President of the United States. I don’t remember most of my dreams, but I like to think that I carry some weighty title like that in the vast majority of them. I had my beautiful wife next to me and we were talking to a pilot of sorts through a hatch in the ceiling. He asked a question and gave a demonic smile when my wife agreed to go explore the moon with him. I think it was actually the sun, but that makes even less sense.

Either way, I felt like I had been stabbed in the back by my own wife as she scurried up through the hole in the ceiling. Decisions were being made without me, the President, and I knew that I was no longer safe where I was. My reactions were slow; I remember thinking that I should have jumped up and closed the hatch denying my wife the chance to go explore the moon (or sun), sealed it with a spin of the wheel, and hightailed it out of there.

I knew that safety existed through a blue door somewhere in the distance.

I should have followed my instincts, but something held me back. This is where it gets kind of murky, as I’m not sure why I didn’t immediately seek refuge behind the blue door. When I found the blue door though, I turned the other way, for there was work to be done. Some sort of mysterious mission had to be accomplished first.

I went down a hallway looking for answers. The hallway turned to the left and then there was a door to a closet. Behind that door was a man, who I guess didn’t have the right answers, because I killed him. I killed him with my bare hands.

This is a first for me. I’m not a killer, in real life or in dreams, so I was little freaked out by it. I also knew that this only heightened the danger I was in and further jeopardized my mysterious mission, so I had to hide the body. To do this, I went back down the hallway and turned out the lights. Brilliant, eh? No one would suspect to look down a dark hallway.

There was a group of important people walking by just as I was switching off the lights and they asked me what I was up to. The biggest of the bunch, a guy who must have been at least 7 feet tall, was suspicious and I had to turn him away from going down the hall.

I went on my way searching for whatever I was searching for when there was commotion from the group as they had turned back to search the dark hallway. I knew that I didn’t have much time. I sprinted towards the sanctuary of the blue door. I ran past the 7-foot man. I was impressed with myself for how fast I was running. As the door was quickly approaching, I heard a gunshot.

That’s when I woke up, at 1:40 in the morning, with my heart racing and a sharp pain in my ribs. I think I dreamt that I got shot and the pain is what woke me up. As I tried to calm down, and sort through this dream, I kept thinking that I should have killed the 7-foot tall man as I ran by; if I had jumped up and grabbed his head, it wouldn’t have slowed me down too much and I would have made it to the blue door.

Now, after thinking about my violent dream through the rest of the night - yep, I couldn't fall back asleep -and most of the day, I’m a little worried about myself. I mean, who would want to be President of the United States?

Hang Ten and Cowabunga

Today, I saw something I have never seen before, nor would I have ever imagined seeing in my life time. It happened at the lake where I eat lunch often. Take this photo of the quaint and pristine lake:

Now, picture if you can, two older ladies, wearing bright older-lady-pinks-and-blues, rounding the corner and coming to shore… surfing. As in, on surfboards.

While it was a pretty blustery day, there were, predictably, no waves at the lake, as it is a small lake and not the ocean. Because of this, the two ladies each had one long oar, which they wielded like the famous Venetian gondoliers of yore, leisurely and effectively. From afar, I wondered if their boats were actually some version of a gondola, but as they neared I saw that they were definitely just surfboards. Yep, just two old ladies riding surfboards.

Maybe I’m, once again, behind the times and this surfing-gondola thing is sweeping the nation and I’m just the last to know. But I can’t imagine that people would want to be stuck standing up, carrying a bulky stick, when they could sit and paddle and have a similar experience. Of course, if this was fifteen or twenty years ago, I would have questioned the emergence of the kayak, thinking the canoe adequately filled the hand-powered-boat niche, so what do I know?

I do know that when I’m older and wearing my bright pinks-and-blues, I can only hope to have the gumption to go surfing, or gondolaing, or just try something new and bizarre. For this reason, I say, “Surf on, sister-friends. Surf on.”

Mind Reading Vampires

Lately, I’ve been reading the Sookie Stackhouse/vampire books. While the series started out being more or less just murder mysteries with, how should I say it, unique characters, it has sort of devolved into a Halloween-themed soap opera. And just like Day of Our Lives, I can’t resist. It’s given me a couple things to think about though.

Firstly, I think I’ve got vampires figured out. Sure they can be incredibly powerful and insanely fast; of course, they have an extremely acute sense of smell, hearing, and vision; and legend says they are irresistibly attractive, but I think all this is the result of one thing: sleep.

Vampires are forced to sleep during the daylight hours. They simply cannot see the light of day. That means they’re sleeping a minimum of ten or so hours each day. I don’t know about you, but if I got that much sleep each and every day, I too would be incredibly powerful and irresistibly attractive. As far as the other stuff, super-speed and whatnot, I’ll believe it when I see it.

The other thing is Sookie Stackhouse. Her special power is that she can read people’s thoughts. If she were to read my thoughts, she would see that I think about this all the time. Recently, whenever I have a thought about someone, even if it’s a relatively harmless thought, my mind immediately jumps to this thought of, “what if they can read minds and they are reading my mind right now!” Then, if there’s time, I start to test them, “Hello… hey… are you reading my mind? There’s an extremely attractive person to your left.” I haven’t gotten a reaction yet.

Yep, if mind readers are out there, I’m sure I’ll find one. And when I do, I hope they’ll introduce me to all their supernatural friends.

His & Hers Toothpaste

What kind of Tuba can you not play?

A Tuba Toothpaste.  Ha! Ha! Ha!

So as you can tell, there are two tubas of toothpaste in the picture.  One for me and one for my wife, can you guess whose is whose?

It's usually not this extreme, but a month ago, while I was packing to go out of town, I decided to take with me our shared toothpaste, which was near it's end.  While I returned after just a few days, the cap to the toothpaste remains out-of-town. 

There wasn't much left, it seemed at the time, so I considered just throwing away the capless tube of toothpaste.  But then I got to thinking... why should I throw away perfectly good toothpaste?  Thus, it began and slowly but predictably the toothpaste built up around the opening.  Each day it grew and grew until it came to resemble the art that it is. 

That's right, I said it, it's art.  I can hear the critics now, "It represents both the beaulty and the ugliness of life.  It cleans while needing to be cleaned.  It represents motion while representing hardened rigidity.  It creates while it destroys; it destroys while it creates.  It even promises fresh breath.  It is such an ordinary item, yet I cannot look away."  And that would just be for the one tube.

If you included the second tube of toothpaste in the same piece of art, suddenly it becomes so much more.  "This work speaks of truths that civilization is to ashamed to recognize.  The constant pursuit of cleanliness that we all share has rendered us all filthy.  Soiled by the ignorance of consumption.  Consumed by the spoils of greed.  What is used, is easily replaced.  What is replaced is easily still of use.  Yes, the artist is telling us all that our morning breath overwhelming our lives, that we all wreak of failure."

Then if you put it in front of a mirror, the meaning is only magnified...

I could go on and on.  I have to say though, that that ugly empty tube of toothpaste is still spitting out toothpaste on command after all this time.  It's really quite impressive.  Of course, when I do switch over to a new tube, I'll have to remember to keep an eye on the cap.

Our New Camera!

We got our fancy new camera and this weekend, we were finally able to take it out for a test drive. We used a nearby park for our first time out.
This picture is the result of a pretty cool feature of our camera, where you basically take three pictures and it stitches them all together. So Tiff took a picture of me sitting on a log, then took a picture of the empty middle section, then I took a picture of Tiff on the other end of the log. Pretty cool, eh?

By the way, aren't we cute in our plaid?

So the camera's super fancy, so before you watch the first ever video of me with this camera, I encourage you to go ahead and pop some popcorn, use the restroom, get comfortable and adjust your mind to widescreen, because what you are about to see is a cinematic experience like no other! And Please Silence Your Cellphones.

(I had to shrink it all funny because of the widesceenedness, so if it look all wrong for anyone, please comment. Thanks!)

Pictures Without Cameras

With the camera gone, I have to turn from photos to art. Perhaps I should hire a courtroom artist, I'm not sure what they're actually called, to illustrate scenes of my life. I don't think anyone could object to sketching me going to work, or eating a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich for lunch, or agonizing as I watch another DC United game unfold into defeat.

My wife’s an artist. I could just hire her. She sells stuff online. While most of what she does is birds and trees, her latest is of a cat:

She usually doesn’t do people though, so it could be a bit of a challenge for her. Or at least that's what I thought until this past weekend when, looking through her old sketch books, I found this little picture tucked away in the corner of a page dated 10/09… I will call it A Portrait of Me.
I think it's brilliant. She says she doesn’t remember doing it, but it makes me wonder what exactly I was doing that warranted me being drawn in my underwear with a big, goofy grin on my face. My guess: probably standing around in my underwear with a big, goofy grin on my face. There's a good chance I was envisioning myself having just saved the day... perhaps a thought bubble with me donning a cape billowing in the breeze would help. Although, I don't think courtroom sketches have too many thought bubbles.

I can only imagine the floating head glaring at me is the artist herself. Sometimes I suppose I deserve to be glared at.

Anyways, I love this picture of me, and I hope to find many uses for it here at the Muted Guerrilla. Maybe my intern Jeff can put it to good use.

Cell Phones

What do Warren Buffet, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, Tavis Smiley and the Muted Guerrilla's own John Duffy have in common? That's right, they all scorn cellphone usage.

Dinner (For Schmucks) & A Movie

Friday the 13th. The lore surrounding Friday the Thirteenth undoubtedly originated in vintage 1980’s horror movies. They forever linked the hockey mask to the chainsaw to certain unspeakable death. While perhaps there’s more to this spooky date than that, I offer my contribution to the litany of Friday the Thirteenth horrors, which also takes place at the movies:

Every now and then, my wife and I go out on something resembling a date. We’ll make plans a few days in advance. We’ll get kind-of, sort-of dressed up for a date-like dinner and then see a date-like movie. And so it was this past Friday that we had a fancy dinner at Pizza Hut and saw the highly-romantic movie, Dinner for Schmucks.

Dinner was everything that Pizza Hut has to offer and the movie was good enough, and we headed home happily unaware that tragedy had already struck. For at some point over the course of the evening, our camera was stolen. Yep, cue the organ music and B-movie scream. It had been in my wife’s purse, which was left in the car for most of the evening. I must not have locked the car at some point.

I can’t underscore enough how much it sucks. Yes, it’s just a camera, but I truly feel like a Schmuck. In fact, after the initial shock, I spent some time trying to figure out how I felt. For a long time, I couldn’t get past just feeling bad. I wasn’t angry or vengeful, which is what I would have guessed. It was more like disrespected, but disrespected in a way that “who would do such a thing?!?” doesn’t even come close to characterizing. Without my knowledge, some random guy came into my car, went through my stuff, and stole pictures of my life. I feel like I need to give my car a shower.

So unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the evening, or of the past two weeks. Truth is, I haven’t included any pictures in a long time, for which, I will blame my intern Jeff. Soon though, I hope to include pictures again, as we just bought two cameras online, one of which is identical to the one we lost. They are both used and priced well below their market price. I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t buying some poor schmuck’s stolen camera. There’s even a chance that we just bought the one we had stolen. I’ll have to check for pictures of a Kings of Leon concert.

So, let this be a lesson to anyone who goes on a date on Friday the Thirteenth! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!

Twiddling Thumbs

I turned thirty a few months ago. I’m getting old. It’s very sad. Already, I’m showing signs of getting old. My knee hurts, my back aches, my memory is fading. I’ve got a hip that pops when I walk and creaks when I stop. My balance is starting to give and I keep hitting my head or bumping into walls and doors and people. There are other tell-tale signs too. For instance, did I mention my memory is fading? (Aahh… you knew it was coming.)

For my thirtieth birthday though, I got tickets to a rock concert, Kings of Leon. As my wife said, “I knew they’d be good, but I wasn’t expecting them to be true rock stars.” To me, they were simply awesome. While a few favorites definitely stuck out, all the songs were great, start to finish.

Throughout the show, while I was happily singing along and occasionally making fun of how short my wife is, I was struck by how many people were twiddling their thumbs rapidly into a cellphone. Maybe the world has changed more than I’d like to admit, but I remember the good old days when all you could do with a cellphone is talk with it… five years ago. The last thing I would want to be doing at a rock concert with pretty hefty ticket prices is LOLing or OMGing or updating my Facebook status. What happened to just enjoying the show?

I really sound like an old grump, don’t I? In my defense, I am thirty now. And it seems like I’m one of the few thirty-year olds who generally does not carry around a cellphone. I used to and I imagine someday I will again, but I’ve found that most of the time I was using it to ask my wife questions like “Did you need salted or unsalted butter?” Sure, it might be best to ask the question and get the answer, but there’s a certain freedom in rolling the dice and hoping you’re right.

A cellphone would definitely come in handy, however, if say my car broke down or something, but part of me secretly looks forward to that happening. It would be like Problem Solving 101: What To Do When…. Don’t get me wrong, it would suck figuring it out and I would probably curse myself for not having a cellphone, but I’d get to fully experience that level of suck, like people did way back when… ten years ago. And just like people should have been fully experiencing Kings of Leon at the show.

Of course, I spent a portion of my time at the show enviously watching people with their glowing cellphones, pondering how best to incorporate them into my blog. Sure, I was listening and enjoying myself, but I've got fans of my own to please... you! Perhaps there's not such a big difference between those with cellphones and those without after all, and like the star-bellied Sneetches, maybe I'll learn to get my nose out the air.

All Dogs Go... Somewhere

The dog ran off. I’m not a dog owner, but if I was it would undoubtedly run off. It’s not that dogs hate me – in fact, quite the opposite, they’re usually drawn to me. I think it has something to do with my aura that only dogs can see, or maybe it’s the fact that I whistle inaudibly all the time in a tone that only dogs can hear, or maybe, just maybe, it’s my personal hygiene and I stink such that only dogs can smell.

Actually, my guess is that they can sense that I need protection. They see me and they think, “I’ve got my work cut out for me with this one.” As I said though, they would undoubtedly run off, but it would undoubtedly be when I wasn’t there. I would go to work for the day and a few hours later the dog would start to worry, “where’d that boy run off to this time!” Another hour or two later and the dog would resolutely set off on a heroic search and rescue mission. For all it knows, I could be anywhere!

This week my wife and I have been house-sitting, and well, the dog ran off. Soon after we arrived one day after work, we were back in the car, hollering out the window. We knew immediately that it was no use. We were on a dirt road in the middle of rolling farmland, the dog could be anywhere.

After a bit, we tried to convince ourselves that it was best if we stayed at the house and waited for her to return on her own. Dogs are smart, I remember thinking. But we both shared the same feeling of dread. It didn’t feel like the dog was on her way back home.

My wife had put out a few calls to folks around the area but nobody had seen anything. Then the phone rang. Somebody who was in town visiting had seen a dog on the road a few miles up. Back in the car, we drove almost four miles before we slowed down to crawl and began to yell her name out the window. It was pretty far away, but it was all that we had to go on. We drove another mile like this without any luck before we turned around and continued searching as we drove back to the house.

Near the end of the street, about the place we had slowed down, I thought I saw something in the woods. I stopped the car to watch it. It wasn’t moving. I knew it wasn’t a dog, but I had to double check. I turned the car around and quickly confirmed it was not a dog. About to turn around again, my wife told me to go a bit further, more out of safety than anything else as it was on a blind turn. About halfway down the stretch of road that we had already searched, I turned around. It was almost dark. Our search was getting pointless.

A few houses down a woman had come out of her home. While I don’t suspect she recognized my wife, she had been one of my wife’s teachers growing up. My wife did the talking, and her response went something like this, “You know, we saw a dog a while back….” At this point she looked over our car into the large field across the street. “Oh wait,” she said pointing to the fence about a hundred feet off the road, “is that your dog?” As we thanked her she said, “I’m not sure why I came outside, but now I’m glad I did.”

She was scared to the point that it took a long time for her to recognize us. And she limped on both front legs because she had run the pads of her paws raw. But she was alive, which was a huge relief.

While I might be tempted to roll my eyes and say, “Always in the last place you look,” I’m beginning to wonder if there’s not more to it than that. I’ve been mentioning my faith in the abundance, and along with that I may have some belief in the Universe, and I think this story is that in a nutshell. One coincidence after another allowed that dog to be found. The visitor from out of town happened to be driving by just then, I turned around to double check what I knew wasn’t a dog and it led to my wife seeing someone she hasn’t seen in twenty years.

It makes me wonder. Maybe all this happened for a reason. Maybe the Universe is trying to tell me something. Maybe I’m suppose to get a dog. And name it The Universe. Then I could be the Master of the Universe, just like He-Man! Of course, then you'd hear me say, "Well, The Universe ran off again." And then I would have to set off on a heroic mission to rescue The Universe! I could see it now...

Unfortunately, I'd also have to mean it when I said, "No digging The Universe!" which I'd have trouble with, ya dig?

A Better Me

After another slight break in blogging (I’m definitely not winning over any fans this way), I am going to attempt to weave together a few stories, so please bear with me.

I think I’m well on my way to attaining enlightenment. Right now I’m at the “I want to be a better person” stage. Next up, becoming a better person. Then, in no time at all, attaining enlightenment. After that, I will burst into flames.

I’ve tried visualizing and reciting affirmations along these lines with help from a CD, but the speaker’s soft and pleasant voice usually just puts me to sleep. However, a few weeks ago in deciding between two weekend adventures away from my wife, neither of which I can really afford, a soft and pleasant voice in the back of my head reminded me that “I have Faith in the Abundance.” Twenty minutes later, I had committed to both.

I survived the first weekend a couple weeks ago, and now, I can report that I have survived the second weekend, a wedding in Florida . I was able to take a few days off of work beforehand to see my sister along the way, which gave me some justification for driving instead of flying.

On a map, it doesn’t look so bad. I live in Northern Virginia, so I’d have to drive through a lot of Virginia , North Carolina , South Carolina , a small part of Georgia , and a small part of Florida . With a stop at my sister’s in North Carolina , I’d get to break up that state going down to the wedding, and South Carolina looked so small compared to the states around it. All in all, I was thinking North Carolina would suck on the way back, but Virginia looked the most daunting, and by then I’d be in the home stretch.

Point is, I was wrong. South Carolina is enormous. And that small section of Georgia I think is even bigger. The way down, two 6 hour drives, wasn’t so bad. Not only did I have a destination, but the mile markers that line the highway were counting down so I knew how far it was to the state line. On the way back, it was anybody’s guess. (Although, the South of the Border place on the Carolina divide with their love of billboards was helpful. “Hey, Amigo, only 216 miles to South of the Border!” It’s bad when “216 miles” is of some comfort.)

Anyways, the wedding was a lot of fun and I’m glad I made it. It was the right decision and in a way I think I’m a better person because of it.

So, back to becoming a better person, I’ve turned to a book to be my guide of sorts, It’s a Meaningful Life, It Just Takes Practice. It’s a great read. Each five- or six-page chapter makes you think about stuff and look at yourself differently, and more often than not, it leaves you challenging yourself to do this small thing or that little thing, all in the name of becoming a better person. For me, it’s become something of a daily shot in the arm.

On Sunday night, after 12 long hours racing up the East coast, my daily shot in the arm encouraged me essentially to be more personable and treat everyone like friends, singling out people like telemarketers and cashiers who have a lot of interactions but are usually overlooked. On Monday, after driving 24 hours in one long weekend, I returned to work with this still fresh in my mind, and on my lunch break, I had my first chance to put it into practice at the local pharmacy.

While I’ve been advised not to share the literally-blood-dripping details, I feel comfortable saying that after so much time in the car, my first attempt at greeting a cashier with all due compassion was with a tube of Preparation H in hand, ironically another first for me.

Needless to say, my first attempt did not go over too well, and in fact, for most of this week my path to being a better person has hit a few rough patches – one in particular comes to mind. But I’m pretty sure that sooner than later along this path of mine, I’ll see a sign up ahead that reads, “Hey, Amigo, only 216 miles to being a better person!” and that will provide at least some comfort.

Yeah to Carrots

In the past, I’ve sung the praises of one particularly orange vegetable. Recently, I’ve included carrots as part of my regular diet.

My lunch has felt a bit incomplete for a while now. It used to include the nutty flavors of a wholesome granola bar, but that ended shortly after my CostCo membership ran-out. So, for several months, it’s been pretty lonely for my Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich (today’s, by the way, was particularly good), with just a can of Diet Pepsi to share an entire lunch box.

While the link at the top wants all to scream out, "Yes To Carrots(!)," I wasn't too excited. It took some convincing from my wife, but eventually I said, "Yeah" to Carrots. And I'm glad I did. Carrots have made a nice addition, and now I’m eating them by the boatloads. Not only are they good, they’re good for you. In particular, they’re supposed to improve your eyesight. And as I’ve learned recently, my eyesight needs some improving.

Of course, some might argue that my hearing, memory, heart health, muscle mass, joint pain, body fat, and overall personal hygiene needs some improving, but that’s why I eat the Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich.

With the Good Comes the Bad

Today was one of those days when the planets aligned, God smiled down, and everything seemed to go my way. I left a bit late for work today, but all the lights turned green as I approached. I said all the right things at all the right times. I turned in all of my big projects at work. My questions to the boss were somehow more insightful, my jokes to coworkers were definitely funnier, and my random encounters with the general public were all meaningful and memorable to everyone involved. Yes, in a word today was magical.

When I got home, I discovered my zipper was down.

Upon reflection, I realized that I had not been to the bathroom all day. I had roamed the office with an uncharacteristic confidence, spent some time speaking with my boss and my boss’s boss in her office, chatted casually with the casual chatters whose chatter I usually avoid, and all-in-all had myself a pretty social day… all the while with my zipper down.

I’m not too clear on philosophical debate or mystical beliefs, but I cannot help but wonder if the two are connected somehow. Recently, I have come to think that I have faith in the abundance – you like that confidence? I’m not quite sure what it is supposed to mean, but to me it is simply that there is enough out there for everyone. There is enough good for everyone to be good or enough wealth for everyone to be wealthy… that sort of thing.

But then my zipper was down, and that can’t be good.

I blame Lady Gaga.

Something terrible has happened. This morning I woke up singing a painfully catchy song that I undoubtedly heard on Hot 99.5. I don’t remember which one it was, because after an hour or so of it bouncing through my head, I forced myself to sing something else. The first song I thought of was another painfully catchy song that I heard on Hot 99.5, so after another hour or so, I had to find a new song, and now, after two or three more songs, I have a terrible headache.

I blame Lady Gaga, whose silly songs started my listening to Hot 99.5 a few months ago. Now regrettably, it’s the radio station I listen to most often and with one annoyingly catchy song after another, I can sing most of their playlist. I think it’s supposed to be a Top 40 station, but from what I can tell, 95% of the time they’re playing one of about a dozen or so songs.

Of all the songs, my favorite line, by far, has to be “Baby, you the whole package/Plus you pay your taxes,” which pretty much sums up most of the songs. Actually, that’s one of the better songs.

I’m sure complaints about music haven’t changed too much over the years, but with the songs out today, it makes me wonder if I listened to the same message growing up as folks would today. I don’t know what the answer to that is, but either way I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter, art imitating life and whatnot.

I’m also pretty sure that “I want to be a billionaire so friggin’ bad/I’d buy all of the things I never had.” Of course, once I bought all that stuff, I’m pretty sure I’d just want different stuff, when all I really need is just a new pair of shoes and maybe something for this headache I’ve got. Or maybe all I need is just to turn off the radio for awhile.

Weekend Dinner

I’ve fallen into a downward pattern of not living in the moment. I’ll do something over the weekend and then decide to write about it come Tuesday or Wednesday. I blame my intern Jeff… I’m not asking him to reinvent the wheel here, just find a better layout for the blog.

I have just posted something that I wrote in the moment and set the time stamp closer to that moment, but I’m afraid it might reveal a bit too much about what happens in my head at any given moment. I have quite a few of these posts that I write and write and write and then realize that they make very little sense, so I never post them and then they sit in limbo waiting to be posted. I feel sort of bad for them, but they’re usually the type that you’re right in feeling bad for.

Anyways, starting over based on this weekend, which included realizing that I didn’t want to be in downtown Philadelphia:

I enjoy going out to eat. I do this far too often, but it still feels like such a treat every time. This weekend, however, I got a real treat, a fancy meal at a fancy restaurant.

The place was just a steakhouse, but the $60 meal included steak and seafood, salad and sides, and the option of crème brulee among other stuff for dessert. I don’t even know what crème brulee is! The steak and seafood were absurdly good. The salad, too. My side, a baked potato the size of a football, looked amazing, but I couldn’t eat it as I was stuffed. The desserts, as a table, we graciously declined, so I still don’t know what crème brulee is.

All in all, despite the extreme excess, what a treat! As I’ve said, I enjoy going out to eat, and I always enjoy my cheeseburger or chicken sandwich with fries and a coke. I’ve all but stopped eating fast food nonsense in place of the dining experience. After this weekend, I’m left wondering if I shouldn’t go a step further. Maybe I should hold off on the mediocre outings and save up for really nice meals once or twice a year. I would probably save money in the long run, and it almost certainly would be a healthier decision.

Right now, I’m stuck on the “but what would I do?” argument. Going out to eat is like entertainment! There are probably thousands of answers, but for some reason, my mind just can’t think of any. Maybe I’m just hungry… I think a bite out somewhere may help.

Striking It Rich, or Just Striking Out

Today, my fate stared at me in the face, and I stared back.

It all started as I was getting gas. As soon as I opened my car door, there they were, two perfectly shiny pennies staring at me from the cement below, both with the familiar image of Abraham Lincoln winking at me. Both heads-up, and at a gas station no less. One lottery ticket would be in my near future. Make that one 42-million-dollar lottery ticket.

As I started up the gas pump, I realized I didn’t have any dollar bills on me. This is a rare event for me, so I wasn’t sure what to do. I scrounged through the shadows of my car hoping to find a stray dollar bill. I know there was one back there recently, I had used it as a bookmark. But alas, my search came up empty.

Then I saw the pile of change in my center console. Could I? My mind wondered deviously. Should I? I’ve never used coins to buy a lottery ticket and something about it just doesn’t sound right. Lottery tickets should be a passive activity, not a last-ditch, every-last-nickel event. I quickly threw decorum to the wind and counted up my change. A couple quarters, a few dimes, throw in a couple nickels, yep… a full dollar.

I finished up with the gas and left my car to go purchase my fortune. Then disaster struck. A third penny lay on the ground before the door. The light caught it just so that I knew from ten feet away that it showed the stately pillars of tails-up.

Time slowed. My mind raced as I approached the dream-killing penny. I reasoned that I found two good pennies so I’m still up overall, but I knew I was only fooling myself. I tried to doubt the power of the penny but realized that would be a bit hollow as it was a penny that started this. I briefly considered going around the store to the other door, perhaps I would have had I not been so close.

In the end, I bent down and, per my usual routine, flipped the upside down penny over and then picked it up and put it in my pocket. Create your own luck, I always say. But it just didn’t feel right this time.

I knew right away too. I would not be getting a lottery ticket. Not today. While this realization was devastating in and of itself, the timing of the realization now left me with bigger issues as I stood in a tiny convenience with nothing in particular to buy. I looked around and settled on…

The sixteen ounce can of Diet Pepsi. That’s right… Today, twelve ounces wasn’t going to cut it. I needed each and every one of those extra four ounces and credit them with getting me through the day.

Haircuts

You know that you needed a haircut when afterwards people you normally never talk to comment on your hair. “Yep, got the summer cut!” I told one such person today. To another I quipped, “Oh, you like it? My ears certainly do!” After a few similar comments my response devolved into more of an Eeyore-esque admission, “Well, I suppose it was time.”

It definitely was time. I had so much hair I had started brushing it! I had stopped using the good shampoo simply because I didn’t want to waste the copious amounts needed to get a good lather. The hair-behind-the-ear-tuck had become my fidget of choice. My hair had gotten so long that I now have a tan line from where my hair used to be. It was definitely time.

There’s something strange about haircuts that always gives me something to talk about. Maybe it has to do with the twenty minutes of staring at yourself in the mirror… all the while having a five minute conversation with a stranger stretched out over the full amount of time. As painful as that is, I still prefer it to the newer type places where they have a big screen showing ESPN and they face you to it like you’re some sort of incapacitated drooler - “Look, it’s your favorite show!” – while you’re left to wonder what’s happening on that head of yours. Poor choice of words, perhaps, but you know what I’m talking about.

There are also the places that offer the big reveal at the end. I guess the ESPN places fit into this category too, but here, I mean the places that turn you towards the people waiting. It’s like being put on display, high up on the hair dresser chair. I feel like I should smile and approvingly cast down towards the audience below as if to say, “This! This is what you have to look forward to! Patience has its rewards.”

Then when they’re done they slowly spin you around for the big reveal, "So, what do you think?" I always feel obligated to say it looks great even if I don't think it does. I figure they're the professional not me. I don't want to offend such a skilled artisan by criticizing the fruits of their labor. Plus, it's just hair. Double plus, what would I say? "Oh, this just isn't right at all."

Even if you’ve gotten to watch yourself the whole time, there is still the big Ta-Da moment, I suppose. This is when they hold the mirror up so you can see the back. Recently, I've used this brief moment every couple of months to check up on my bald spot. I'm pretty sure the hairdresser isn't expecting the look of horror on my face as I'm frantically searching the mirror in their hand, but that's what they get.

They usually jump in with "You like it?" before I've actually had a chance to look, so I have to praise them for the unknown. But as I walk out into the fresh summer air, my ears definitely like it and it's then that I first think to myself, "Yeah, I suppose it was time."

The Other Side of the Tracks

This weekend, Tiff and I Independently declared that No Longer would we be Held Under the Tyranny of National Holidays and that Our Freedom should Be Duly Exercised in accordance with our Life, Liberty and particularly this weekend, our Pursuit of Happiness. Yes, this weekend, rather than neighborhood parades and evening sparklers, Tiff and I returned to the Charles Town Racetrack to whist the day away betting on horses.

This weekend in Charles Town, West Virginia, however, the horses were not the main attraction. Neither was the Fourth of July. Or even a rare three-day weekend. This weekend, Charles Town Races and Slots became the Hollywood Casino in Charles Town. Table games galore! Fun? Yes. Good Clean Fun? No.

I’ve been doubting my original claim that Horse Racing is Good Clean Fun pretty much since I wrote it. The atmosphere has everything that I would look for in Good Clean Fun: Old-timey folks doing old-timey things, Leisurely activities that scream of yesteryear, Admiration for outdoorsy-types… yeah, maybe a bit of city-folk-in-the-country feel. However, it does involve gambling, but I think my mixed feelings originally stem from the enormous building attached to it filled with glowing slot machines.

Now, with poker and craps, blackjack and roulette, and all those crazy Asian card games, the Norman Rockwell image of Charles Town, WV has lost its apple pie charm to the temptations of Sin City. Yep, Charles Town has just wandered to the other side of the tracks.

They seem to have gotten off to a poor start too. The poker tables are just below the grandstand, or between the racetrack seats and the bathrooms, so that you have to walk alllll the way around. The poker tables weren't open either, much to the ire of many, many people. "I drove two hours to play poker and only 8 tables are going to open!" There aren't too many table game tables either and the result was, at 3 in the afternoon, the lowest limit was $50 dollars! $50 dollars just to play!!

It didn't drive people away though as they were packed full. One man I saw following an employee kept repeating, "That's it? That's all the tables?" The poor lady just repeated "Yes sir. All the tables are behind you," clearly annoyed by the common question.

All in all, it was extremely disappointing, and it will probably be awhile before I venture back to the racetrack again.

The World Cup and My Wife

The exciting run the US had is sadly over and I’m having a hard time rooting for another team. Oh, if only I had some connection to Paraguay ! For those who care, I’m now behind the Netherlands , who will undoubtedly lose tomorrow. My basis for supporting the Netherlands at this point is because they wear orange. Orange looks nice on a green field.

While the US was ultimately somewhat of a disappointment, their adventure wasn’t without some benefit. Lots of people revealed themselves as being somewhere on the soccer fan ladder, most significantly, my wife. It was amazing… she got it! The final score of their final game was 2-1, and she was just as gripped by the suspense and drama of the event as I was!

Interestingly, once Tiff learned who the players were – names, faces and numbers – everything changed. She was attached to them and could root for the team through the players. Before the end of the first round, she knew the whole team, even the third string goalie! She would even make appropriate comments like, "Dempsey's taking a beating!" "C'mon Carlos!" and "Jozy! Oh, so close!"

I’ve been trying to transfer some of that enthusiasm to DC United, but it hasn’t quite stuck just yet. Tiff’s still caught up with the national team players, so much so that Benny Feilhaber is still the background on our computer.
We'll get 'em next time, Benny 22.