Master of None

From Russia With Love

2006-06-19T23:51:00.000-05:00

Of all of my accounts of stupidity, I can believe I left this one out.

If you think back far enough, you’ve probably been guilty of wanting something you couldn’t have. I definitely have, and if you can guess what it is, I’ll rename this blog in your honor.

Okay, now that we’ve figured out that you didn’t guess it, here goes:

I wanted to be in the marching band.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I went to a small public school (same building Kindergarten through 12th grade) that was strapped for resources to say the least. As a result, this lack of resources led to no football team, which led to no school band. Actually there were only three extracurricular activities, playing baseball, playing basketball or watching one of the first two options.

So how did my marching band foray play out? When I started my freshman year of college, I continued taking piano lessons—I would finish with 11 years total when I figured out that an accounting degree and a minor in piano was not going to mesh. I actually auditioned for a teacher before school started, so I was on campus late in the summer one day right before band camp. The teacher asked me if I would be interested in the band. I quickly explained that I probably should not be considered because I thought it was a little too late to learn to toot “Stars and Stripes Forever” while marching in a straight line. He countered with that they needed another percussionist in the pit to play the xylophone. I could probably handle that; after all there would be no marching, and all of those years of piano lessons would probably translate well.

I had always wanted to play in the band. You could imagine my excitement. I only had a few weeks to learn the music that everyone else had been practicing all summer, but I put in overtime to master it. The show was a collection of songs from various James Bond movies. I loved it. I loved the music. I loved the geekiness of the bandies. Hell, I even loved James Bond. The first halftime show came a few weeks later, and I was great. I’ll admit it. Tina Turner herself could not have churned out a more moving version of “Golden Eyes.”

So, first week down and I’m really starting to enjoy this. Then Monday came.

It turns out that one of the members of the brass section got kicked out of school for drug use or something like that. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal except that the guy was a tuba player. You heard me, TUBA. Apparently, the entire halftime show had been choreographed around eight tubas; so only having seven wouldn’t work. So, I had to learn to march that tuba in four days. I was so scared. Not only did I not know how to march, I didn’t know the show. These seasoned veterans in the band world had been rehearsing for weeks. The band director thought that my liability as a novice marcher was less than that of an unbalanced visual presentation of “Secret Agent Man.”

Showtime arrives at the end of the week, and I’m a nervous wreck. If you haven’t figured out by now, I had no intentions (nor any expectations from anyone else) of actually playing music. I was just the show balancer. Not an easy feat when there are 250 people (counting dance line) on the field and I’m carrying the tuba, which can topple me over if the wind blows strongly enough.

You can probably guess where this is headed. I got confused once the show started, and before I knew it, I was in the midst of a pack of flutists. I ran into one and she fell. By the time I found my place in line, the show was almost over. I was almost off the field before someone in the stands noticed that I didn’t have a mouthpiece.

I kept with it though, and before long I was marching—complete with mouthpiece—like a pro. I continued on with the tuba, and got asked to play the cymbals during Christmas parade season. You would think this would be easier, but just imagine me running down the street in Belmont, Mississippi looking for my cymbal after the leather strap broke.

After that one season I retired my marching shoes. I did have a good time though, as I usually do. As I have proven, you don’t necessarily have to know how to play a tuba (or even know what the mouthpiece is) to be a tuba player.

Coping with an all-out 5-alarm technological breakdown

2006-06-04T15:49:00.000-05:00

I’m convinced that my dependence on modern miracles--technology as we know it—was gradual. I cannot pinpoint an exact time that it happened. Now as I suffer through it, I can see how it has changed my life, both for the better and worse.

To give you a status update, here’s where I stand in the breakdown. I STILL have no cable or internet access. However, God-willing, we have an appointment for service on Tuesday. This comes after a customer service representative at Cox cable told my wife last week that it could be up to a year before our service could be installed. I promptly called the corporate office in Atlanta and spoke to someone in the Customer Relations department. We had our appointment by the end of the afternoon. This is 8 weeks after our promised service date. Anyway, on to the other ingredients in my breakdown.

Before we moved, we thought our monitor had gone out on our home PC. So, in anticipation of our reunion with high-speed internet service, I bought a new flat panel model on Ebay. When I hooked it up and realized that the monitor was not the problem, I was very scared. Fortunately, with the help of a techno-genius friend in Louisiana, I got the computer back and running and still have a new monitor. I still feel like I might be in a leaky-roof situation though and know that a computer upgrade is on the horizon. Plus, the speakers no longer work, but I can live with that.

After 3 ½ years of faithful service, I regret to say that our Sony digital camera passed away this week. This one is very disturbing. I cannot even estimate how many pictures we have taken. We recorded the moving to two new cities, two new homes, the arrival of our daughter and all of her milestones to date, plus tons of other photos that would not have been worthy of a photo if I had been forced to pay for processing! As with the computer, we knew that this replacement was coming. We were not ashamed that our camera was so much bulkier than the new sleek models that everyone else was sporting, nor the fact that the memory card door had broken off. So, I started the process of looking through sales papers today.

TiVo. Some might consider this trivial, but none of those people actually have TiVo. We cannot use this service because it runs on our home network, which is obviously out since we do not have internet service. It’s also pointless right now because we get 1.75 channels with our rabbit ears.

And today I find out that our VCR may too have gone on to be with the Lord. (We were only using the VCR as a backup to TiVo.)

What have I learned from my breakdown?

Before this breakdown, I brought the office home with me a lot. I didn’t realize how many additional hours I was putting in at my job from home. With a home network and a wireless card, I was almost as efficient at home as I was in my office.

I watch a lot of TV. I’m okay with this though. I could be doing worse things. Hell, I live in Las Vegas, I could be gambling all the time! I have also realized that local television stations have come to believe that their answer to cable networks is almost-continuous local news. Since I basically only have ABC, this one hits close to home. There are only so many local stories, and dragging them out over 10 hours per day is a recipe for absolute boredom. Last night I even tried to watch PBS!!!

I had forgotten that prior to the internet, we used newspapers, telephones and even maps to find where we were going and what movies were playing. This has been a crippling discovery living in a new town.

So where does this leave me?

I want my MTV. Will I even watch MTV once I have cable? Probably not, but I am very ready to return to my technologically enriched life, and hopefully I will be on the track to its return by Tuesday! I’ll keep you posted.

Is there anyone left in Ohio?—well, maybe Idaho too.

2006-05-12T10:47:00.000-05:00

Until my move to present career position, I was always traveling for work. It had its ups and downs, but I did get to see many parts of the US that I probably would not have seen otherwise—does anyone take pleasure trips to Muskogee, Oklahoma?

I’m also a noticer of details, despite my surroundings. When I say details, I mean the really minute things that really do not matter. For example, when I receive a forward, I rarely spend the time to learn about Bill Gates giving me a trip to Disney World or what some extremist Republican (or Democrat) is saying about all of the Mexicans hopping the fence. What I do read are the various distribution lists of who received the email with or before me. Every now and then I’ll recognize a name that I haven’t thought of in years. So, you will usually not hear me complaining about forwards.

Another one of my stupid little habits is noticing every car tag that ever passes me. I’m not sure why I do this, but I always have. One thing that has always stuck out to me is the number of tags I see from Ohio. This has been true when I was home in Atlanta, or even now home in Las Vegas. Those people from Ohio love to travel and they love to do it in their car!

(By the way, does anyone know what you call people from Ohio? Seriously, people from Mississippi are Mississippians, Georgia = Georgians, Nevada – Nevadans. What are the folks from Ohio called?)

Just last week I was going home for lunch (my new Thursday thing since (a) I now have a home again and (b) I get to see Mrs. MoN, baby MoN, and Jack Pete.) and I saw two Ohio tags in a row. They weren’t even on the interstate, but rather a surface street. This is not an isolated incident either. I see them all the time.

At first I thought I was just seeing Idaho tags, because they are very similar in their red-white-blue design, but no, for the most part they are still from Ohio. With gas prices soaring, I’m afraid that some of those Ohio people are going to get stuck somewhere that’s not Ohio.

Am I crazy, or does anyone else notice stupid things like this?

How May I Help You?

2006-04-30T19:09:00.000-05:00

Most people I know have had “incidents” with customer service. I consider this to be normal for others. However, this is not normal for me. Let me give you a recap of my dealings with those in the service industry just in the past week.

Last Saturday: We decided to order pizza. My favorite chain-restaurant pizza is Papa Johns. We never ate Papa Johns in Atlanta because there was not one anywhere near our ghetto. Imagine my delight when I saw one just ten minutes away. I looked up the number and gave them a call. I gave my address, then the two major cross-streets out here in the desert. The salesgirl then told me that they couldn’t deliver to me because I am about ¼ of a mile outside of the delivery area. I’m okay with this and then proceed to say, “Then I need to place an order for pick-up. . .”CLICK. She had hung up on me. I call back immediately and get the same person. She starts the whole spill about needing my address. I tell her that I’m the same guy that she just hung up on. She quickly responds “No I didn’t.” Anyway, I picked up the pizza myself 25 minutes later.

Ongoing: We still do not have cable, thus no home internet. Every time I call the cable company, the customer service rep of the hour explains that my address is not in their system and that the lines have been not been run. Then, he is quick to tell me that it’s not their fault, but that of the builder of my community. So, I call the builder, he quickly blames the cable company. It turns out that it’s a contractor of the cable company that has not run the lines. Regardless, cable keeps pushing the earliest possible date two weeks.

(As mentioned above, “someone else’s fault”. I have encountered this numerous times since moving to Nevada. Most people I deal with here are very defensive about EVERYTHING. Everyone is quick to tell me that it’s not their fault. This was also evident at my workplace. It was so bad that I had to call a meeting to tell them that I never want to hear those words again, but rather solutions. And now, on with the story.)

Yesterday afternoon: The post office. I’m sure this is a shocker for everyone. As our condo is in a construction zone, our mailbox is inaccessible. As a result, our mail is held at the post office and we have to go pick it up. Keep in mind that I live in one of the fastest growing areas in the country. Many others are in my situation, so the wait at the post office to pick up the mail is about 45 minutes on average. We had put it off for a week and thought we might should see if there was anything pressing. So, I wait in the line. I finally made it to the front, and the clerk was gone back to get my mail when the fire alarm went off. A supervisor came running out screaming everyone out. I’m cringing because my mail was so close to being delivered. They would not let me have it and we all had to retreat to the parking lot. I waited in the hot sun (remember I do live in Nevada now and we are already in the mid-90s) for 10 minutes when the supervisor informed us that it could be a long time because she didn’t know what was going on.

Last night: We went to Wal-Mart after dinner to return a ceiling fan that I had bought that was complete with stripped screws. (I’m not very handy anyway, so you can imagine how pissed I was over those screws). So, we get in to Wal-Mart and the line at the customer service desk is unusually short. I tell Mrs. MoN, “I’m just going to get a refund then we’ll buy another one so I don't have to stand in line again.” The customer service manager convinces me not to do this because it will be easy to do an easy swap-out. I reluctantly agree, and leave the ceiling fan in pursuit of another one. Of course, they were out of the fan that I originally bought, so I had to get another one that was $4 more. By the time we get back to the front of the store, there are 20 people in line. We wait forever. I’m kicking myself over this one.

I tell all these stories because this is the way of my life in any situation where I am forced to depend on others. This is not extraordinary, this is a typical week in my life. I’m scared to think about what we and the cable company will go through before we are actually hooked up. Plus next week we are getting new driving licenses and car tags, so I’m sure that will go smoothly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Other tidbits from my new life in the desert.

Our dog, Jack Pete made it in Thursday night. He arrived via air cargo, and it’s good to have him back. Our backyard is just dirt though, and he couldn’t do his business out there. So, I try to find some pine straw to put on the ground because that’s what we had in Atlanta. After calling every home improvement store and nursery in the area, I realized that you can’t get it in the desert. Further more, most of the people I talked to did not even know what it was (I guess that comes from there being no trees out here.)

One day this week the weather man on the local news said that the humidity was a “whopping 15%”. Obviously someone who has never been to the South.

Kroger is known as “Smiths.” But don’t worry, you can still use the Kroger card there. (As if you were worried about my grocery savings!)

Even incorrect grammar here is different. The big mistakes that I hear are “these ones” and “those ones”. I had never heard that before moving out here. Oh, and several of my co-workers say the term “inputteded.” I assume they are trying to convey the past tense of input.

Tidbits

2006-04-14T13:47:00.000-05:00

Move status: Almost all boxes are unboxed. The piano got a small ding, but moving insurance should cover the repair. The dishwasher and oven both are not working, but Sears should be out today to fix.

We have no cable yet, and it will probably be weeks because we have new construction. As a result, I have a flat screen television with a pair of rabbit ears hanging off of it. I can get three channels well and I can watch one more if it is a show that I really want to see. It brings back horrible nightmares of my growing-up days in Mississippi before we had cable. We had the large pole antenna above our house. To get certain stations (the selection was all of five) my dad would stand outside twisting the pole while one of us screamed, “a little more, a little more, wait, no, a little more, stop. You missed it, go back a little. . . . . . . .”.

Injuries: I missed the bottom step yesterday with a box full of books. I may have twisted my ankle, but I’m figuring out that the worst part is the massive carpet burn I sustained. One good thing is that Mrs. MoN let me have the couch last night and waited on me hand and, well, foot, literally.

Baby MoN and Jack Pete (you didn’t forget my dog did you?) arrive next week. Then this relocation from hell will finally be over.

ION

If you are one of my faithful readers, you’ll recall how I compared my Mississippi home with my more recent one in Atlanta based on the stores. Mississippi had a “Discount Shoes and Gutters” store while Atlanta had “Wigs and Beepers.” Well, apparently this is not just a Southern thing. Last week there was a robbery here in Las Vegas at the “Exotic Birds and Batteries” store. The combinations are endless. . . .

Have a good Easter weekend.

The end of the marathon is near; I’m tired, the finish lines keeps moving and I’m afraid my toenails are about to fall off!

2006-04-07T00:55:00.000-05:00

The catchy title has bits of truth in every word. I’ve heard that many runners lose their toe nails after a marathon. I’m having feet problems that I’m sure stem from the week-to-week hotel I shower in, but that’s a different story.

Okay, I’m sorry I left. I needed time to have 27 mental breakdowns. It will take me a while to catch you up, I’m not sure if it will be in this post or not. I have to get up in a few hours but I can’t bring myself to go to bed. I’m not sure if anyone still checks here for a post—but I’ll do this as a trial run to see.

The house closing was today. I say the closing, but it really wasn’t. Nevada has some crazy rules for buying a house. Here are the highlights:

Final walkthrough: Dented refrigerator, which I was going to let slide until I kept getting pissed off so I told them it had to be replaced. At one point when I was pointing out paint touch ups the guy told me that “over 100 hands worked on your house” and we can’t be sure of everything that happened. Very consoling to a new homeowners. Plus, the pre-wire for two ceiling fans in the other bedrooms was missing. I pointed out that this could have been avoided if they had scheduled my pre-wallboard wiring walkthrough AFTER they had finished the wiring.

Funds: It took me 30 minutes to get a bank certified check because I finally had to call my bank back in Atlanta to temporarily raise my ATM limit so my new bank here could give me the money.

Title company: The signer (what they’re called in the business) came in and never even introduced herself. 10 minutes later she was in a shouting fight with my realtor. We almost walked out. The realtor actually did walk out and hunted down this woman’s supervisor. She was pulled out for a few minutes and came back in with a different attitude. PLUS, the lending company tried to sneak in an addendum that was not discussed. At that point I refused to sign until it was taken care of.

Possession: We were supposed to have the keys Monday. Now they’re saying Tuesday or Wednesday. This was another huge fight between the builder and me. I was really pissed this time because of. . . .

The movers: I should add that they are not at fault here. I scheduled the movers for Tuesday after confirming THREE F#$KING TIMES with the builder. The movers are coming from Wisconsin because that’s where every possession I have is in storage (long story, don’t ask). So, we were able to put them off for 1 day, but Wednesday is all they have. If we don’t get the keys that morning, they have to pull out that night to be in Phoenix on Saturday. Yes, I’m still uncertain how that’s going to go.

So, that was my day. I got to the office at 3:30 because my boss had been calling my cell phone. Of course he’s in Atlanta, so I missed him.

ION. My baby turned 1 today. She’s in Mississippi where she and Mrs. MoN have been staying with grandparents since I’m living in a rathole. I’m devastated that I wasn’t there, but I’m flying back tomorrow for her big party on Saturday. Hopefully by next weekend we’ll all be together again. Mrs. MoN returns with me on Sunday so at least tonight is my last night alone.

Around the first of March I went off of the company expense account since I no longer had a house to pay for in Atlanta. So, trying to cut costs and save as much as possible, I now reside at the Budget Budget Suites. (Not a typo, that’s exactly how their sign reads) It’s a rathole, but what can you do? It was costing $5,000 a month to stay in real hotels, plus this is the busiest time of the year in Las Vegas. I’ll write a post later about my two trips (and hopefully only two) trips to the local Family Dollar to buy $15 cookware—yes the whole set cost $15.

Work is the only thing in my life that is calming down. I’m really starting to get the hang of the new job, and I’m actually enjoying it.

I wasn’t sure I would return to the blog. I have missed it, but a close friend told me a few months ago that he didn’t read it, because he didn’t need to hear someone else make fun of Mississippi. I hope people see this as something else. Why would I need to make fun of MS? My family and most of my friends still live there. It also just happens to be the backdrop of where a lot of my funny moments in life take place. Let me know how you feel about this.

Soon this move will be over and I will hopefully return to my usual material—although I could really go off on immigration reform right now! There’s probably a few more posts though that I will write to talk about the screw ups that are bound to happen as I complete this relocation. Honestly, have you ever known anyone to have this much trouble moving???

Someone moved my cheese, and I have a long list of the assholes that I found eating on it!

2006-01-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

Thanks to all three of you who have been checking back at this site only to find out that I haven’t posted. Here’s the scoop, and after reading it, you probably won’t blame me.

Most of the month of January was probably the hardest time of my life so far. This relocation has been much more difficult than I anticipated. 75% of my anxiety has been the result of our trying to sell our house in Atlanta.

I believe my last post was a month ago, so here’s what happened in between.

We were very optimistic at the first of the year. Lots of traffic during the holidays, and everything was bound to pick up right away. At least that’ what the realtor kept telling us (At this point it’s important for me to clarify two things: (1) We had an offer—not good, but an offer none-the-less—from my company if we didn’t sell our house after marketing it for 90 days and (2) if we took that offer, our realtor didn’t get a penny). So, the realtor is trying his best to keep our spirits up and his too. Mrs. MoN and I were certain that something would happen within three weeks.

Week 2: nothing yet. One couple keeps looking at it, but will not make a move. Still, we are getting lots of traffic. The company is putting pressure on me to lower my price—they really do not want to have to buy my house, and I don’t want them too. I try to hold out one more week.

Week 3: Bastard neighbors put their house on the market for $7,000 less than us. This is after they had already scoped out house at the open house. Next day: we lower our price by $5,000. This just screams weakness. Couple from above comes back again and brings parents. By Saturday, they made an offer. It was horrible. If there’s such a thing as rape in the real estate world, that’s what we got. We countered back.

Author’s Note: I’m really not just pissed about the neighbors putting their house on the market when mine was already there. They truly are bastard neighbors. Two summers ago when theft was flourishing in our neighborhood, I personally went to their front door to invite them to a neighborhood meeting at my house to discuss solutions such as neighborhood watch, etc. They laughed in my face and said that they generally weren’t interested in little things like that. From that point I wanted to steal their shit myself!

The counter-offering would go on for days. We finally got a fairly good deal, and more importantly, they gave up first. Our close date is February 27, but the company will take control before that, so we are finished once the movers take our stuff away.

I know what you’re thinking, that’s not enough to be considered the worst month of your life. And your right. NOW. . . factor in all of the following with the above:

WORK: The year end close out could not have gone worse. My staff accountant quit right before it started. We missed our big deadline by two whole days and a lot of people were pissed at our results. Not my fault mind you, but stressful to say the least. By this time I’m eating Tums and not much else. I was sinking at work. I was literally getting hours of requests per day in addition to the work that my short-handed staff was supposed to be doing. I logged over 500 emails that week.

LIVING: The second largest convention of the year came to town that week, and as a result, any hotel rooms to be found (not many) were $800 per night. To avoid this, I had to move hotels 4 times in one week. That’s hard to do when you’re dragging your whole life around in Rubbermaid containers.

BACK HOME IN ATLANTA: It seems that my stroke of bad luck has rubbed off on Mrs. MoN. Everything she does goes wrong. She doesn’t complain much to me because she knows that I’m just a few catastrophes away from an extended stay in the crazy house. But, I know that she’s struggling. While I’m battling my troubles out here, she’s working a full-time job, being a single parent to our daughter and keeping a house spotlessly clean to be shown by real estate agents at any moment.

In addition, Baby MoN learned to crawl. Imagine my guilt not being there. Enough said.

OUR NEW HOME HERE: Keep in mind that something was not going to work had we not sold our home in Atlanta. Our plan is for Mrs. MoN to stay at home once out here. We were going to have to choose between renting and this had the house not sold. We never really talked about it because I don’t think either one of us could bear the thought. So, I was talking to the builder here as if we had plenty of money and everything was right on plan, while all the time I knew that I might be about to lose the $2,000 earnest money I had put down, plus be back at square one.

MY HEALTH: I certainly didn’t count on this. The stress, poor nutrition and frequent travel on planes has taken its toll on me. I have been sick a lot. I missed two days of work two days ago because I had a fever of 102. I thought I might even have the flu. To add insult to my situation, my insurance would not cover me since I was out of state and we will not change it over until we have a house here. Their response to my 102 fever: “We only cover emergencies out of state, and BCBS of Georgia HMO does not consider a cold or even the flu to be an emergency.”

And so, that’s what was going on while I didn’t post. I kinda became a hermit all around. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, because it just made me even more depressed. I ate lunch most days and that was it. I was working 14-16 hours per day, and crashing in the bed when it was over.

BUT. . . . . . .Everything is looking up now. The house is under contract, the movers have been scheduled. We are ready and waiting for the new condo to be ready (yes condo, if you look at real estate, you understand why they say Nevada is the new California). Work is getting under control, slowly but surely. Our next month-end close begins Friday. I didn’t even get sick when I made another return trip to Atlanta this past weekend.

More to come, I promise. Here’s a teaser: My mom called tonight and told me the latest community gossip concerning a cemetery plot, a headstone and a divorced son-in-law who’s trying to guarantee his resting spot for eternity!

Happy New Year (brought to you by Rubbermaid)

2006-01-02T00:09:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year Everyone.

Mrs. MoN journeyed back to Las Vegas with me for the holiday. She went home today. For New Year’s Eve we had dinner with some of my co-workers, then went to see Celine Dion’s New Day concert at Caesar’s Palace. I must say that it was really good (despite making fun of Kimpossible’s New Day houseshoes earlier this year). Afterwards we went to the strip, and it was amazing. I haven’t seen that many people (nor smelled as much pot) since I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans in college.

Okay, so an update as to where I’ve been since my last post and where I’m headed.

CHRISTMAS WAS WONDERFUL. 8 days with my wife and daughter and dog. We got tons of gifts and cash. I honestly get more now than I did when I was a kid. For any of you who are parentless, have a kid. You really reap the benefits at Christmas!

We have two cars, a Ford Explorer and a VW Jetta. My company had the Explorer shipped here to Las Vegas back in November. We didn’t think about trying to get to Mississippi for Christmas in the Jetta. It was horrible! We had the car so packed down that the dog had to sit in our laps. When we stopped in Birmingham to feed the baby, we had to feed her through the car window!

On the stop in Birmingham mentioned above, I was walking the dog when a man (he was stopped to air up a tire and get a turkey from his neighbor—don’t ask) stopped me to ask about the dog. He proceeded to tell me that he had 4 of his own, the last one being a “stud fee.” This is what I love about the South—strangers are friendly! It was then that I knew I was almost home.

Now I’m back at work, living in hotels (3 separate ones this week due to a big convention coming to town) and out of Rubbermaid containers. With all of my Christmas loot, I’ve had to add a shopping bag to the collection until I can buy more Rubbermaid.

We are in the middle of year-end close at work, so it’s very busy. My accountant has quit, and his last day was Friday. So now on top of selling a house I have a job opening. I’m just a walking classified ad. Yes, we are still trying to sell that house.

This is a high-level summary of what’s going on. In addition, I’m shedding. I am losing the outermost layer skin on my hands, and I don’t know why.

Rubbermaid, Homelessness and Pillows

2005-12-18T15:40:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has ever done long-term travel alone knows that the weekends are the worst. Friday nights are not that bad because I’ve been so exhausted that I just crash. But by Saturday afternoon, it’s so boring. Any thrills that Las Vegas might have had have all been lost on me. And surprisingly, I haven’t really done that much in a tourist way. It’s just so depressing doing things by myself. This is quite odd if you know me, because normally I don’t mind time to myself. I guess 5 weeks is my limit.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but my car has made it out here. It took 10 days to ship and arrived a few weeks ago. It’s nice to have one familiar thing with me.

I think most of you know that we are under some pressure about selling our house. Regardless of how that turns out, I’m looking to be out here for 3 or 4 weeks (at the minimum) on no expense account. My “temporary living” expenses expire at 90 days, so beginning February, I will truly be homeless. It’s already bad enough; I have a Rubbermaid container that I keep groceries, laundry detergent, etc. in. Every time I check out of a hotel I pile my stuff in it and load it in my car.

The problem will be lodging. Currently I am in a no-frills extended stay hotel at which I get a deeply discounted corporate rate. Still, this room is around $600 per week. I don’t want to swing that when I’m on my own, so I may be going to shady hotels that give weekly or monthly rates and can be negotiated based on $cash$. I’m sure there’s going to be a story there!

Last night I finished reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed. The book exposes the difficulty of getting by in America working unskilled jobs at entry-level wages. It was really good and insightful, especially at this time of my life. I originally read the review at The Infinite Abyss.

Last night I ventured out to find another book and to also buy some pillows because the ones at my hotel are bags of rocks. Honestly, who in hotel management would actually think, “We can skimp on the pillows because those never really matter to anyone anyway.” Now when I pack up, I can throw the pillows on top of my Rubbermaid.

ION

One of my employees gave his notice on Friday night. I guess he’s off to greener pastures or either hates me. Regardless, I’ve got an accounting position open if anyone’s interested in moving to Vegas.

I am going home for a week on Wednesday. On Thursday we will be journeying to Mississippi to be with the families. Then Mrs. MoN is coming back to Vegas with me for New Year’s Eve.

Extended Stay Hotels, The Termite Man, Disney on Ice and Strippers

2005-12-09T01:07:00.000-05:00

Random one tonight. I had to post about the most depressing thing I've seen in a long time. I'm staying in an extended stay hotel now, which is better for my situation because I have a kitchenette and more importantly, a refrigerator AND a place to do laundry (it cost me $34 for a pair of jeans, two shirts and some underwear my first trip out!). The only thing more depressing about checking in to this hotel and telling them that I would be here for TWELVE NIGHTS (on top of the 7 that I was at a regular hotel) was that two nights ago someone had set up a mini Christmas tree in their room and opened their blinds so that all the world could see. Need I say more?

Extended stays are interesting places though. Just a few nights ago I was driving up (9p.m.) when 12 or so guys ran out with laptops up and running, slapped about 10 antennas on 3 minivans and roared out of the parking lot.

Oh, and the thermastat in my room is either 80 degress or 60, there's no in-between. Tonight I'm having an 80 night so I'm quite warm.

I had a call today from my alarm company, the first time that has ever happened. I should have figured it would, because everything seems to go wrong when I'm out-of-town. It was just the termite man though trying to get into the crawl space.

My brother called tonight. He was just checking in because we haven't talked in several weeks. He told me that he and his wife had taken my neice to see "Disney on Ice" tonight. He finished by saying, "You'll be doing that soon too in a few years. Well, OUT THERE, you'll probably be going to some topless show on ice." I didn't know what to say. So I just replied with "Yeah, probably."

This is probably a sign of my brother's disapproval of our decision to move here. I've never mentioned my brother, so let me give a quick comparison of him and me. He's 4 years older and the most virtuous, moral, ethical man I know. For example, when he was in high school, he would come home at 8:00 on a Friday night and tell my parents that he left early because he thought his friends were going somewhere where there might be alcohol. When I was in high school, I was calling up my friends to remind them that I needed their $15 because we had found someone to make a run to the liquor store. We have nothing in common other than both being accountants. I think you get the picture. I'm anticipating one trip out to visit us while we live here, and I'm sure he will be thoroughly repulsed.

On a lighter note. . .I'M GOING HOME TOMORROW. I can't wait to see my wife and my little girl and my dog, even though Mrs. MoN says he really smells. Rumor has it that my daughter has said "mama" a time or two. And she's holding her own bottle now. I'll be home for the weekend and will fly back to Vegas on Monday morning.

This three week stint has been tough. I don't think I'll try it again. I'm hopefully on a two week maximum from now on.

Keep your fingers crossed about us selling the house. It showed today and we have another open house on Sunday.

Las Vegas Move Series, Installment 2

2005-12-01T01:01:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay in a new post. After you read this, you’ll see why I haven’t had any time.

In 1992, Queen Elizabeth II, dealing with many trials in her life, declared the year to be the worst of her life—I had the Latin phrase ready, but I can’t decide if it’s anus horribilis or annus horribilis, and I don’t want to be talking about a horrible anus incorrectly! While I haven’t had scandal with an heir-apparent child or a castle burn, or even a bad year, I sure have had one hell of a day!

Let me tell you about today, and then I’ll catch you up on the family’s transition to Las Vegas. Don’t worry, they’re intertwined.

Morning. I’ve now moved from traditional hotels to an extended stay hotel. It’s a little bit better now with a refrigerator and I don’t have to eat EVERY meal at a restaurant. I haven’t been able to get a reservation for the first week of January—actually the 3rd through the 9th. Apparently, the largest convention in the world comes to Vegas that week every year. The hotels that are not sold out are charging between $500 and $800 per night, non-refundable 100% deposit. I mentioned this at work, and a couple of people knew some people who knew some people and eventually got me a room. But as this was going on, two of the employees—one my direct report, were arguing about how I was mistaken. One is a native Las Vegan. You don’t meet many of these out here, and some of them feel the need to let you know that they know EVERYTHING about this town, and you’ll always be inferior. Their mission was not about helping me find a room, but rather proving me wrong.

Lunch. A disturbing call from my relocation consultant. I had been counting on a safety net offer on my house that my company extends at 90 days that is based on two appraisals. I hope to sell before, but it was nice to have that comfort. Anyway, their offer came in several, several thousands of dollars less than my house would appraise for. They failed to mention during this entire process that they instruct THEIR appraisers to discount their report based on selling the house quickly and to account for slow periods of the year, which we are in the biggest one of the year.

I was furious. I started my argument with her, and then just told her that she should call her appraisers and ask specific questions how they justified the lesser amount. I figured I should let it rest because I really tend to make an ass out of myself when I make such impromptu arguments.

(As a side note, no need to worry yet. Our house has shown 7 times in the past two weeks, fairly remarkable considering the slowdown and the Thanksgiving holiday. If we get our price or close to it, none of this will matter anyway.)

Afternoon. Mrs. MoN is sick. We think it might be the flu. Yes, she’s the only one at home to take care of Baby MoN, and we sure as hell don’t want her to get it. So, step-mother-in-law from Mississippi was dispatched immediately and our buddy Tex took the evening shift with the baby to keep my wife’s contact limited. (Thanks Tex).

Tonight I had to step in at the last minute for our plant manager at the Nevada Manufacturer’s Association annual dinner. He’s on the Board of Directors and was sick. It wasn’t a total loss though, because I sat beside another Controller from a neighboring company. I asked him where he moved from and he said, “Tupelo, Mississippi.” Thus the groundwork was laid for easy conversation for the rest of the night.

Prior to getting sick, Mrs. MoN joined me here in LV for Thanksgiving (Baby with grandparents). We stayed on the strip and did all of the touristy things as it was her first time here. She really liked it, and even liked the place I’ve picked for us to live. Timing was on my side when I showed her the community. I was explaining how it was supposed to be a real family-friendly place, and an ice cream truck drove by complete with the corny music.

When I flew out a week and a half ago, I got upgraded to First Class. Of all my years of business travel, I’ve never flown first class. I loved the extra room, but I thought all of the extras (warm, wet towels to wash your hands, etc.) were a little silly. But hey, if Delta can charge a lot more money for those towels, more power to them. Lord knows they need the money. I only got upgraded because I am now a Silver Medallion member thanks to my travel this year.

As I recap the move-to-date, here’s what has shocked me the most. I was totally wrong about what would be the difficult areas of this move and what would be the easy ones. I was concentrating so hard on the new job that I forgot about some of the details. While my company has a fairly good relocation policy, it’s still a lot of work, even if I’m not paying for it.

As for the job, I am adjusting fairly well, and more importantly, I really like what I’m doing. It has been difficult getting used to approximately 75 emails a day that require responses and the mini deadlines that accumulate hourly, but they day flies by. I like the environment too. It’s so different than the corporate structure I’ve been used to. Hell, I now wear jeans to work and I have a pair of steel-toed boots that I wear occasionally and a hard hat with my name on it (Everyone who knows me personally is busting out laughing at this thought)!

One of the weirdest things for me is being someone’s boss. I’ve been in a supervisory position for a few years now, but I have never been administratively responsible for anyone, let alone a whole accounting department—okay, so it’s not that big, but still. On Monday one of my employees came in and asked for a vacation day next week. My first thought was, “Why the hell are you asking me?”, but luckily I caught myself before I said that.

All that being said, I can’t write much more. It’s almost 10:00 here and I think it will take the permanent move early next year before my body fully adjusts to Pacific Time.

For everyone who’s still stopping by this site from time to time, thanks. Hopefully life will adjust one day and I can write more frequently.

Are you winning a lot in Las Vegas?

2005-11-17T15:50:00.000-05:00

"Have you won a lot of money gambling?"

"So, you're wife's not going to get a job out there, is she going to make her money at the slot machines?"

"I hope you don't lose everything while you're out there!"

I have been asked 20,893 variations on the above questions, or been given advice on how to combat the evils of gambling once I move to Las Vegas. Ever since we've announced the move, most people that we meet actually think that they are the first to make a cute remark about Las Vegas being a gambling town. Now I just look at them like I can't comprehend what they are talking about.

If I were moving to Florida (any part mind you), would people think that I would spend every waking moment at the beach?

Maybe the casino comments are just starting to get to me because everything else is too at this point. Most of these people don't realize that I grew up in Mississippi, the nation's third largest gambling state. I've been around casinos for a long time, but now that I'm moving to Vegas, I will probably try to cash out my 401(k) and see if I can really secure my future.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I've never really said much about my company, never even mentioned the name. I will at this time because I got the shocking news Sunday night that my company, Georgia-Pacific was being bought by private investors.

Within the next 24 hours I would contract the stomach virus which would land me in bed on Monday, and then Tuesday night I would come down with self-diagnosed nervous insomnia which left me completely awake when the alarm clock went off the next morning.

It's been a fun couple of weeks.

The MoN Move to Las Vegas Series

2005-11-06T00:52:00.000-05:00

Warning: This is a long post. It takes my blog in yet a different direction. I’ll try to keep giving you funny stories along the way, but primarily this will chronicle my family’s transition from Atlanta to Las Vegas. That should be funny enough in its own right. I’m not promising anything on the grammatical correctness, because frankly I’m too tired to re-read. And Kimpossible, I promise to email soon!

I know I’ve been gone for forever, but hopefully this post will catch everyone up to speed where I am with my crazy life right now.

I’m currently in Las Vegas, but let’s backtrack to last Saturday.

Saturday (October 29)

I finished the porches. As you all know, I’ve been working on them for about 2 months, moaning and bitching every step of the way. I got the last coat of paint on and there were no fall leaves sticking to it before it dried. Nothing like getting a house ready to sell to force you to finish a job.

The remainder of Saturday, we cleaned house all night trying to get ready to sell it. We also had to run out and buy our daughter her big-girl car-seat. She outgrew the infant carrier.

Sunday

Met with first realtor. My company is handling the relocation, so we have to play by their rules, one of which is that we will meet with two realtors. We didn’t have a problem with the guy, and we actually told him that we would pick him anyway. That’s before he turned in his “report” to my company stating that a fair asking price for my house was $10,000 less than what we had agreed. We continued cleaning. I left the inside for my wife and I started work on the yard. I cut the grass (hopefully for the last time), blew leaves and put out new pinestraw. I was blowing pinestraw in the back and bagging it up while I was buying new pinestraw to put out in the front. Now that I think of it, sometimes I’m not the smartest guy on the block. Well, okay, I probably am on my block because I live in the ghetto. And don’t forget, I stepped in dogshit in Petsmart.

Monday – Halloween

This would be one of the craziest days I’ve ever had in my life. I went in to work to only find out that it would not be my last week in my department. I’m having to go back for three days the week before Thanksgiving to wrap up a project. My boss is being very great about this whole transition thing. He told me that he understood I had a lot going on and if I needed to work from home for the rest of the week that I could. Bingo. Just what I needed.

I finally make it home around lunch. I’ve got the moving company calling for a preliminary discussion, two mortgage companies calling me to pressure me about locking rates as I get preapproved for a new house in LV, and the second realtor is calling too. On top of this, Mrs. MoN has to leave work early because baby MoN is sick at daycare.

Fast forward to 7:00 p.m: Dog is locked up in master bedroom, sick daughter is asleep (finally) in her crib, second realtor is sitting on the couch trying to give his pitch. Wife is trying to listen and cook dinner at the same time. Am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah, it’s Halloween, and I live in the ghetto. The one night of the year that it’s acceptable to knock on peoples’ doors and ask for handouts! As you can imagine, it’s a 3-ring circus, all I want to do is huddle in the corner and suck my thumb.

The trick or treaters were just too much. They were scuffing around ON MY FRESHLY PAINTED PORCH! We ran out of candy quickly. The next group that came after we ran out wanted me to compensate them in some way, asking “Can you give us a drink or some’in since you done run out of candy?” I slammed the door.

At this point, the realtor is about 2/3 through his spill, and I figure he’s about to run. I’m trying to hold on to him though because his preliminary estimate of what we should market the house was dead on what I thought.

We finally crash around 10:30.

Tuesday

A much quieter day. Our second realtor comes through with his original estimate so we choose him. The house will be listed on Monday.

I have another conversation with the mortgage guys. Their original numbers were wrong in our favor, but it’s still not good. I failed to take into account when I was preparing the projected budget that interest rates had gone up. This coupled with the fact that we’ve decided that Mrs. MoN will stay home with the baby means that we will have to scale back considerably. This does not even take into account that the Las Vegas home market is booming right now and prices are through the roof! We may be living in a tent!

Wednesday

Not much to report. My last day in the office in Atlanta for a while.

Thursday

Haircut, flew to Las Vegas. It was a long trip indeed because baby has now given Mommy and Daddy her cold.

Friday

First day of work at the plant. I FEEL LIKE CRAP. The cold really has me down. My nose is an ever-running spout. I am determined to make it through the day. I sneak out around 11:00 to find a drug store. I leave work at 5:00 because I just can’t take it anymore.

First full night in Vegas, and I’m asleep by 9:30. I was awakened at some point in the night because there was an apparent domestic disturbance out in the hall. Some woman was severely intoxicated and decided that she was going to use the occasion to let her husband/boyfriend know exactly what she thought of him. The she proceeded to tell his parents who were in the room next door. She was also telling the cops as they hauled her away. The hotel management kicked the whole family out about an hour later.

But on to the work stuff. I’m really going to have my work cut out for me. I think I’ve got a steep learning curve ahead of me. The people were really nice and receptive. That’s unusual since I’m from the corporate office. Only one woman made a comment about how young I look, but she’s not one of my direct reports. I did snoop through the personnel files long enough to notice that I am actually younger than all of those who work for me. Should be interesting.

Saturday

So here we are at today—it’s still Saturday on the west coast. I’ve basically been a bum all day only venturing out for food. I thought I would be working today and tomorrow, but the people at the plant thought it best if I rested and tried to get well. They probably just thought I was contagious or had had enough of my wadded up tissue trail.

The rest of the week and beyond.

I’ll be here in Las Vegas through Friday, when I fly home to be there for 9 days. Then I return to Vegas for a 3-week stint, but the wife will be joining me during Thanksgiving as we try to find a house. I talked to the realtor today, and we hope to go out house hunting on Wednesday.

The house in Atlanta lists on the market on Monday morning at the price I wanted. Let me know if you want to buy it. I’ll knock $1,000 if you mention this blog.

I still haven’t told the story about breaking the news to my grandmother that we were moving to Las Vegas. Another time. For now, the OTC cold medicine is kicking in and I hope I can get this posted before passing out.

Irony

2005-10-31T09:41:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was consumed by cleaning and repairing. We met with a realtor yesterday, and we hope to have our house on the market by Tuesday. And yes, you'll all be glad to know that I finished painting the porches on Saturday, the project that I began in early September!

A realtor from Las Vegas called on Friday night. I'm not sure how she's going to work out. I told her OUR MAXIMUM PRICE. So what did she do? She added $50,000 to it and said she would start looking for houses in that range!!! I should meet her in person this weekend, so I'm thinking this might be a trial period.

I leave for Las Vegas on Thursday. Since I'm going on short notice, I'm coming back home for a 4-day weekend after I've been out there for 8 days.

And now to the irony.

I worked outside in my yard for 4 hours on Sunday. Keep in mind that I have a Jack Russell Terrier named Jack Pete who uses the backyard as his master bath. That being said, life has been so crazy lately that I haven't gone out with my plastic bag and picked up his poop for over a month. As you can imagine, my yard is a doo-doo land mine.

During this whole time I did not step in any dog crap. After the yard work, I had to go to Petsmart. While I WAS INSIDE Petsmart, I stepped in dog shit . . . . . . TWICE!!!. How does this happen?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

My big news

2005-10-26T04:27:00.000-05:00

The MoN is moving to Vegas. My company has offered me a position at our facility there, and I just can't pass it up. I'll be going in the next few weeks, and my family will be joining me once our house sells and we can find a place out there--probably late January.

I've never lived in the desert, or anywhere that's not in the South. I'm excited.

The funny story that I promised deals with my breaking of the news to my grandmother. This tale will be up soon.

I promise I haven't vanished. . . .

2005-10-22T23:32:00.000-05:00

. . . .I've just been on the road non-stop with work, and now our cable modem is out at home. I'll be back soon with BIG NEWS! and a funny story to boot!

October 13

2005-10-12T21:52:00.000-05:00

In an hour, the date will be October 13. Four years ago on October 13, there were tornados and rain storms all throughout central and northeast Mississippi. I was a bundle of nerves and the phone was ringing off the hook with friends and family members telling me that they would not be able to make the journey to Jackson due to the weather. On top of this, one of my friends had started the journey from Birmingham, and I wasn't sure if he would make it due to the weather. As I'm continuing to freak out, I call the cell phone of the star of that particular Saturday and ask how she is making it. I'm anticipating crying or anger at her mother, but my bride to be in a few hours is calm as can be getting her hair and make-up done with some of her bridesmaids.

That's right folks, 4 years ago the wife and I were officially about to start the journey of marriage.

4 years and it seems that it could just have been yesterday. Along our journey, we got a dog, moved to a new city where we knew no one, bought our first house and just this year brought our beautiful daughter into the world. And with career progressions and the daily new tasks brought on by raising a child, it's good to have a constant like my wife around.

Happy Anniversary Mrs. MoN!

PS, to everyone else: Superstitious people will tell you that it's good luck to get married on a rainy, stormy day. You'll get no arguments from me!

What in the hell do the birds and bees have to do with it anyway???

2005-10-08T22:44:00.000-05:00

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in a household with strict rules about things “not talked about.” My parents were so busy teaching me those guidelines that they forgot to tell me what those things that we were not going to talk about actually were. Not that I was too anxious as a budding young man to have that talk with my father, but by the end it would have been worth it, as I felt like I was the last person on earth to know what sex was all about!

Figuring out early on that I was very unlikely to have the aforementioned heart to heart with my dad, I decided that finding out what this universal mystery was all about would be up to me alone. And so the journey begins. . . .

Fourth Grade

My curiosity with human reproduction is starting to bud. My first source of information: the school bus. I figured I had learned all kinds of unusual facts during my 30-minute afternoon ride home (everyone was too asleep in the mornings), so it was just up to me to pay attention. I had already learned that you could ignite a hairspray bottle stream with a cigarette lighter and that a very scary girl could eat half of a husky first grade pencil for $3, so why not give it a shot.

Just a few days later, I heard some of the older kids at the back of the bus talking about what I presumed was sex—I was too scared to go to the back of the bus, for God’s sake, there was a girl back there who ate pencils. So, I nervously looked back only to see them laughing hysterically and one of the guys making a hand gesture. Well, you can imagine what crazy theories this led me to. I went home to absorb what I had seen. After a few hours, I deduced that this could not be sex.

Fifth Grade

As school started back, my trek for knowledge was back on. It was fueled by hearing my older cousin who was in high school talking about some couple who “did it” five times over the summer. I eavesdropped all I could, but I could never quite figure out what “it” was.

My ambition led me to the great know-all source of mankind: The World Book Encyclopedia set. All 26 volumes were housed in my living room, so I went and checked a few out. I had to get several because I didn’t want anyway to wonder why just volume “S” was missing. Well, my search for sex, led to "Human Reproduction". Damnit, I had not gotten volume “H”, so I had to make a trade. I finally found it, and the tension was building. Despite the near end of my two-year search, I was still very slow and careful. After all, I didn’t want anyone to notice that the "Human Reproduction" page was wrinkled. All my research brought me was disappointment. Yes, the answer was there. . . IN TECHNICAL TERMS. This didn’t provide much help to someone who had only previously heard “boy parts” referred to as a tallywhacker!

Sixth Grade

Another school year starts and I figure at this point that I can probably lead a fairly productive life as someone who doesn’t know what sex is all about. I can’t really ask anyone. The only thing worse than not knowing is someone else knowing that I don’t know.

One weekend that fall, I spent the night with a friend of mine. It was Friday night, and his parents had taken us to the new Pizza Hut buffet. Once we got home, we found that there was a four-volume set of books in his room called The Life Cycle Library. After some careful investigation, I found out that my friend also was in the dark about sex, and his parents opted to leave this set of books for him rather than have “the talk.”

We both acted like we weren’t that interested, and were only trying to kill some time before Friday Night Videos came on (does anyone remember this?). So, we started glancing through the books. The first two volumes were just more about those birds and bees and pollen that no one really cared about anyway. About halfway through Volume 3 was the real scoop, complete with pictures.

So after three year of searching, I had finally found out what the big secret was. The first thing I wanted to do was to scream to everyone, “I know!” Of course I couldn’t do that because it was on the “don’t talk about” list. However, there was a smug look on my face the next time I saw my cousin and I knew what her friend had “done” 5 times the summer before!

The List

2005-10-03T15:16:00.000-05:00

My family had a list when I was growing up. I shouldn’t just say a list, but it was The List. It wasn’t about chores or other things to complain about. The List was what stood in the way of my brother and I becoming the envy of everyone around. The List was an unwritten account of all of those “extra” things that my family—mainly my brother and me—wanted. The List was our year-round Christmas list. It was easy to get an item on The List; all you had to do was tell my dad. He was the unofficial keeper of The List. For an item to be removed from The List would mean that my family had purchased it. Not matter what you asked for, he would put it on that List, even though you both knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that we would be getting it unless Ed McMahon showed up in the near future. If you haven’t figured out, The List kept growing and growing at a much fast rate than we were decreasing it. I think it was my family’s material possessions purgatory.

The price tags on The List’s items ranged from a few hundred dollars to well into the thousands. Most of the items were probably common desires for low to middle-income families living in rural America. As I ramble on about this list, it’s important to keep in mind that it is circa 1984. Here are some of the more memorable items:

The satellite dish. For those of you young’uns out there, this is before Dish Network or Direct TV. I’m talking about those 8 or 10 foot semi spheres that were off-white or sometimes black mesh. I never understood the black mesh thing: If I had a satellite, I would have wanted the whole world to know, so the off-white number would have been the most conspicuous. Some people would incorporate the satellite dish into their yard by making a flower bed around it or hanging some Christmas lights on it during the season! We never got this item on The List probably because they cost thousands of dollars, but it didn’t help that my mother had heard that when you pointed the dish straight up that you could pick up those “nasty channels.”
In-ground swimming pool. This was the mother of all List items. I knew we would never get this one because a) it cost a fortune, b) our yard would not have accommodated it, and c) my father would never have made the commitment to keep it up with the chemicals and such. I know this last statement is true because a few years later we would end up getting a second-hand above-ground swimming pool (don’t be envious) and we only kept it for a year because of all the up-keep.
VCR. We actually got this one when I was in the 3rd grade. It was one of those fancy models that loaded from the front, not from the top. It even had a WIRED remote. It was so great not having to get up from the chair to turn it on—as long as you had moved your chair to be within 5 feet of the thing.
My 3rd grade year was a biggie because that’s the year we also got a microwave. I didn’t really care about the microwave—it was more of a status thing for my mother.

There were many other items on the list, but I think you get the idea of where I’m going with it. At the time I couldn’t understand why my parents didn’t buy everything on The List. Now I understand they were probably piddling their money away on things like clothes and shoes for two growing boys.

Weekend in the Woods

2005-09-26T15:29:00.000-05:00

I’m now apologizing for my lack of new material lately. For both of you that follow this blog, I’m sorry. I’ll blame my absence on recent travels, both for work and personal. My wife, daughter and I spent this weekend with friends from MS at a cabin. Here are some of the highlights:

I discovered that I am the last person on the planet to not have Tivo. I hope to remedy this sometime this week.
I witnessed quite possibly the best redneck small business advertisement t-shirt ever: The shirt read:

"Tan your buns and trade your guns!"

Nabe's Gun and Tan

I learned that after a 4-year absence, I can still shoot tequila.
The cabin where we stayed did not have an internet connection nor cable television. I didn’t think much of this when we were planning. Of course, how was I to know THAT ANOTHER hurricane would develop? I was in withdrawal by Saturday mid-morning, as I usually spend my catastrophe-stricken Saturdays with a pot of coffee and Miles O’Brien. Who knew I would miss him so?
My friend Be almost converted me to a Democrat.
Two of my friends are high school teachers. They told me about one of their seniors last year who had the phrase “Got R Done” printed on his graduation announcements. They are concerned that this “Get R Done” mentality has been taken a little too far. Maybe I should call Miles O’Brien and ask him to do a special story on it.
My daughter reached for me the first time this weekend. It happened on Friday night when we arrived and everyone wanted to hold her. She started crying and started reaching for me. This is very significant, because it’s the first time that she has reached for anyone.
I now how to play Texas Hold’um assuming that my teachers knew what they were doing. Losing all of my chips is the event that led to my realization about tequila (see bullet number 3 if you have already forgotten).

We had a great weekend, and it only cost me $3,867 in gas to get there!

You Can Do It, We Can Help. . . .

2005-09-20T21:16:00.001-05:00

Ah, the slogan of the mighty orange, Home Depot.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I am in the middle of a front porch makeover. No, it’s not by choice, but a necessity because of a questionable paint job by my builder. We have a front porch across the front of our house, and a matching balcony off of the second floor.

I enjoy some home improvement projects. I like to paint interior walls when it’s only one solid color. I don’t mind landscaping tasks when the weather cools off and grass cutting is not involved. I prefer to keep it to one day projects, a weekend at the max. The porch/balcony saga is a different story.

Considering our upcoming weekend and business travel, I am hoping to finish the porches by the end of October. After much debate, I rented a drum sander on Saturday from Home Depot. The guy at the rental counter asked if I had ever used one, and I replied no. He attempted to demonstrate, but he wasn’t too convincing considering that the sander was not even plugged in. In hindsight, I can’t believe they rent these things without requiring a license.

A buddy (Penn) went with me, and we drug it home and finally got it upstairs. I told Penn that he could leave and enjoy his Saturday as this was surely a one-man job. The first 20 minutes found me being slung around by this monster. For those of you who have never seen a drum sander in action, you have to balance the movement of the pad with your own body, hopefully creating a hovering action with the sander. This is not easily achieved by an amateur. I ripped 3 of the sanding pads to pieces within minutes and almost took out an exterior wall. This was frustrating me terribly considering the pads are $7 each. After exhausting every curse word known to man and a short cooling off period, I tried again. This time I got it to work, and in no time I was on my way. I sanded all day and was convinced that I had gotten the good out of my rental. I went through 7 pads in all, counting the 3 from the first 20 minutes.

I returned the sander and had to buy a belt sander to finish the project. I forked out another $70 for the tool, plus $25 for sanding pads. I hope to finish the edge sanding in another 2 weekends, but who knows. I am thinking that I am going to have to replace some boards because of water damage.

Anyway, back to my story. As I was sanding on Saturday, I saw the Home Depot label on the sander, which quickly prompted me to start humming their theme song, which led me to thinking about their slogan. They claim, “You can do it, we can help.” Let’s think about this in reality. I had to drive to the store, give them a credit card to rent the sander. Then I went home, where I—no one from Home Depot showed up in their orange apron to help—had to sand the entire floor on both stories by myself. Afterwards, I hauled the sander back and settled the bill. Before I left I had to give them more money for another sander and more sanding belts. I still will have to pay for caulk, more sanding belts at the rate I’m ripping them off, and paint, and who knows what else. All of this really makes me question how much “they” are helping out. It seems like I’m just giving them a lot of money. A more truthful slogan would be “You can give us a lot of money, we’ll take it and let you do all of the work yourself.” I think I’m on to something. Does anyone have a contact in their marketing department?

The man in the attic

2005-09-17T06:30:00.000-05:00

When my wife or I are out of town and our household becomes a single parent home, our dog, JP, gets extra-sensitive. Near bedtime he barks at every little sound, which is unusual for him. He tries to get about 18 hours of sleep every day, so this leaves little time for senseless howling. This week was no exception, as the wife was gone a few nights for business.

I was exhausted Thursday night after a full day of work and then coming home to play the role of sole caregiver to my daughter. Once she was finally asleep, I hopped into bed with a good book, hopeful that I would pass out in 15 minutes or so. JP soon found his way to the bed, but I could tell he wasn’t going to sleep easily. He started a low growl and then proceeded to bark. I couldn’t hear what was upsetting him. After a few minutes I figured out that he was hearing the air conditioning unit in the attic.

At this point, my child-like imagination goes into action. This is odd for me, because I usually do not have such crazy, vivid thoughts. I either go right to sleep, or have deep thoughts about whether we are saving enough for retirement, etc. Hey, I’m an accountant, so naturally most of my “imagination” ventures are about money.

I got to thinking, what if someone was in our attic. I wasn’t scared because (a) I live in the ghetto, so being scared about noises in the night was something I had to get over a long time ago and (b) it would be impossible for someone to get in our house without our alarm system going into celebration mode. However, a man in the attic, was good food for thought. I guess I’m being sexist here, but if there was a seedy criminal living in our attic, I would just assume it was a man.

It would be fairly easy to live in our attic. We rarely go up there, and while our alarm system covers all of the entrances and windows to our house, it doesn’t detect internal motion, due to our dog. If you lived in our attic, and did not want to be detected, I think it would be very doable. Boring as hell, but easy to do.

You would just have to learn to be quiet during the evening. Everything else would be simple. You would have our whole house to yourself during the day; use of our cable television, use of our high speed internet and so on. We wouldn’t notice if you took a little food. Our dog is not a biter, he’s a licker, so it would take about 16 seconds for him to get used to you. I think it would be a fairly good life.

So, the next time life gets too hard, and you need some truly private time, just consider our attic, we won’t even know you’re here!

The year that Christmas moved to the dining room

2005-09-09T23:25:00.000-05:00

The house I grew up in was strange. I’m not talking about my family and their antics this time, I’m talking about the physical house. Typical of many 3-bedroom ranch homes built in the early 1970s, our house had no sensible layout. The kitchen was in the front, and the living room just seemed to be whatever space was left. For many years my parents tried to justify the living room/dining room combo, but our hodgepodge of furniture and such a crazy floor plan didn’t allow it.

These conditions attributed to my parents’ ongoing crusade to make our home flow better. The obstacles were those mentioned above and strained resources. The outcome would eventually lead to the sale of the house in disgust, but not until years later after I had moved out on my own.

This mission seemed to always gain steam every year when it was time to put up the Christmas tree. We would drag the same old tree out of the storage shed every year because my mother was much too finicky about a clean house to indulge in the messes that live trees brought. To hell with nostalgia and an evergreen scent.

Our problem was that we didn’t have room for a Christmas tree. As our kitchen was in the front of the house, there was no sweeping front window in which to pluck the tree. Most years the best we could do was in front of the window unit air conditioner in the back of the living room. This worked out okay since the unit was in hibernation for the winter.

I’ll remember one year in particular though. It was the year that Christmas tree placement changed my thought process forever.

As Christmas rituals go, I would get all excited about decorating the tree. While I was busy getting the ornaments out, my mother would start complaining about how our house just wasn’t built to host a Christmas tree. I guess my father had heard this for as long as he could stand it, and he vowed to fix the space limitation problem. He proceeded to drag the frame of the tree out onto the carport, gather up some hand tools, and he got to work. Thirty minutes later he came back in, tree in hand, with a gleam on his face, like a scientist who had just developed a cure for cancer.

At first we couldn’t tell what was different. My brother and I were all over it trying to guess what had changed. Mother was standing back with a very skeptical look on her face. We all figured it out very quickly when my father threw a sheet over the dining table, put the stand in place and hoisted the tree up on the table, knocking the glass ceiling light cover off of its mount in the process. He had sawed the bottom off of the tree, so now our 6 foot tree was more like 4 ½ feet, with the top curved over under the naked light bulb ahead.

It was a sight to behold. I wasn’t sure what to do because everyone was silent. The silence wouldn’t last for long though as my mother launched an attack against my father as to how this might be the silliest thing he had ever done. She claimed our new midget tree was an embarrassment and we did not have the money for a new tree. He countered with that she could not be pleased. This went on for some time, and I was just left standing there holding an ornament of baby Jesus’s manager that I had constructed the year before out of popsicle sticks and Easter grass.

For the record, this might be one of the top three fights I ever heard in my house. It was a real gem. The accord finally reached was that we would endure this Charlie Brownish tree for that year and budget for a new one the next. The following day found us all standing in the dining room chairs around the table decorating the tree. There was no room for the gifts, so they were stacked neatly in the same chairs.

The sawed-off tree did solve the space issue that year, and by Christmas we all were laughing over the whole thing. To this day, some twenty years later, we still laugh about that tree. And, to my knowledge, my father learned his lesson that hand tools and artificial Christmas trees do not mix.

Letter to the Editor

2005-09-08T13:16:00.000-05:00

I sent this via email today to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I should note that this is my first letter to the Editor. I don't think it will be published because I'm about 200 words over the 150 word limit, but I didn't feel like editing. Enjoy:

Like most Americans, my indulgence in the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina has caused me to focus on those things in my life for which I am grateful and also those taken for granted.

I have never been an environmentalist. I have never had great opinions one way or another over the treatment of land, wild animals or natural resources. I could try to list excuses but it all comes down to my lack of concern. The effects of Katrina on the energy industry have made me realize how vulnerable our country is when faced with the possibility of a reduced stream of our vital natural resources.

As a result, I decided to research recycling programs. I had recently read about such efforts in other parts of the country, such as the West Coast and the Northeast. Some local governments in these regions make such programs mandatory. Enforcement of the rules includes auditing random bags of trash to make sure that they contain no more than ten percent recyclable material.

I am a resident of Dekalb County. As such, my research soon took me to the Dekalb website. Once I found the correct department’s homepage, I was delighted to see that a new recycling program had just started this year. This was going to be easier than I thought. Further reading of the brochure led me to the price. The cost is $55 to start the program. $55—almost half of which is a generic administration fee!

Correct me if I am wrong, but does charging residents a fee (a substantial one at that) to participate in a plan favorable to the environment make much sense? I understand that increased services call for increased costs, but this is definitely an expense that deserves to be spread into our taxes. We are taxed for my other things that are much less worthwhile than this.

A hurricane caused me to open my eyes to issues facing my family and my world, and to think about ways to be part of the solution. Then an expensive recycling program, one that almost discourages residents from doing the right thing, has made me lose sight of the real issue.

Master of None's Advice on Demand

2005-09-05T23:47:00.000-05:00

Today I began the process of stripping the peeling paint off of my front porch floor. My house is only 2 years old, so I should not have to do this. However, the builder of my house painted the porch after I had signed the contract, and in his effort to save every penny once the house had sold, he didn’t use primer. Now I’m outside of the ~~bitching~~ warranty period, so I’m responsible.

Anyway, the paint has been peeling for sometime now. The front porch has become quite an eyesore considering the abnormal amount of rain that we have received this year. I decided that it should be fixed while the weather is warm, so considering our busy fall weekend schedule, it was time to start.

Someone had told me that the paint was peeling so badly that I could probably avoid sanding and just use a pressure washer. So, I borrowed one from a neighbor and got to work. This technique worked somewhat, but I’m not going to avoid using other means. I have about a fourth of the paint gone now. The pressure washer was a good idea for the paint that was loose, but couldn’t do much for the areas that had remained out of the elements. The pressure washer did do a mean number on my bare big toe when I got bored and decided to see if it could really hurt me. It did.

Now I must decide what the next step is. I have too much exposed wood to just let it go. Should I use a chemical remover? Should I buy a sander? Should I rent a sander? So many questions. I’ll solve this by calling on one of a number of my personal consultants. I have many who over the years have given me great advice. These guys are ready on a moment’s notice when I need home repair remedies, broken-down car advice, career move guidance, computer support, and the list goes on and on. They are always ready to help me out. I even emailed TAH’s mom tonight about baby feeding advice. My wife and I can’t decide if the princess is ready for solid foods.

This got me to thinking how fortunate I am to have such a wide variety of friends with so much expertise. As I was pressure washing (bored out of my mind—at this point I had not decided to point the washer at my big toe) my mind started wondering as to why no one ever calls me for advice. I truly am a master of none. I know about a lot of things, but nothing so detailed that I can give advice or guidance. I have a master’s degree in accounting and I am a CPA, but I’ve never done taxes. I can barely do my own. Taxes are the only reason any individual ever calls a CPA.

So, what problems could people have in which they would call on me for deliverance? Here’s the list I’ve come up with so far:

If I must toot my own horn, I make the best chocolate cake of anyone I know. Anyone who is not a professional at least. It’s a layered cake from scratch that takes 4 ½ sticks of real butter. Delicious.
Wedding music. During the last 13 or 14 years I have played the piano at approximately 50 or so weddings. I guess that would deem me as an expert in that area. Well maybe not an expert; I had a string of 4 weddings in a row in the late 1990s that ended in divorce 1 or 2 years later.
Speaking of the 1990s, how about the fashions from that era. I really can help here because just today I wore a pair of shorts that I bought in 1995. Wait, am I really telling this?
Conning your father-in-law out of a free AAA membership. To do this, just be out-of-town on a business trip EVERY TIME your wife—and his only daughter—has a flat tire. I came home the next week to find a membership kit in the mail. Okay, so he only covered her and did not elect to pay the $12 extra dollars to cover me, but at least we got something.
Conning your ghetto apartment complex into knocking $67 off of your monthly rent payment. To accomplish this send a letter of complaint about roaches in your kitchen and a used condom outside of your front door. To make sure it works, send it to every member of the board of directors of the holding company in Chicago. I had a less than 24-hour turnaround on the results!

Okay, so I’ve exhausted my list. My hope is that you are as impressed with the list as I am depressed about it. Is this really what my life has amounted to? But hey, if you have a flat, are getting married or need a chocolate cake, give me a call and I’ll tell you what to do.

Brian Williams and Me

2005-09-01T07:23:00.000-05:00

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams seems to have it all. Before I get to the point of this pointless post, I want to do a comparison:

BW has a multi-million dollar employment contract, I do not.
BW has hair that is always perfect and in place, I do not.
BW has an eternal tan that is always the right shade, I have a sunburn a few times a year when I either go to the beach or spend the entire weekend doing yard work—which I’m sure that BW probably hires someone to do.
BW never uses “ummmm” or “uahhh” when he is speaking in front of a crowd, I do.
BW either doesn’t need eyeglasses or has contacts that he can tolerate, I do wear glasses because I cannot tolerate my contacts.
BW was named Father of the Year, I was not.
BW probably is not contemplating how he’s going to fix the problem of peeling paint on his front porch, I am.
BW doesn’t have to remember to get up 10 minutes early in the morning so he can get the mountainload of trash that his family accumulates—including a bag of stinky poo diapers—out to the street, I do.

You can see where this is going hopefully. We live totally different lives in which he would reign superior over me in every category.

AND NOW, the bastard even has a blog. The one thing where I was ahead, and he has to go out and create a blog. I heard all about it on NPR yesterday morning. When I got to work, I checked it out, and sure enough, he did. He had 483 replies to one of his posts! I was all excited last week because one of my posts broke 20 comments. The sad part is, he probably doesn’t even write his own stuff. Oh well.

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Other tidbits from around the office:

As I was refilling my coffee cup and waiting for my bagel to toast, I overheard one of my co-workers trying to explain to another one that he could actually see his 401(k) account on the web. The other guy was in disbelief. He then asked if it mattered if he used caps or all lower case to enter the web address.

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Price of regular gasoline in Atlanta this morning (witnessed by yours truly on my way to work):

$3.89/gallon

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Notable blogs found overnight:

No Ha-Ha tonight from the Master of None

2005-08-28T21:59:00.000-05:00

For the past 24 hours, I have spent most of my awake time watching The Weather Channel or CNN. I’m obsessed with the coverage of Hurricane Katrina. In light of the seriousness of this storm, there will not be my usual attempt at humor from my life. I just don’t think it would be appropriate under the circumstances. My wife and I have many family members and friends who are in the path of the storm, including some on the Mississippi coast in Biloxi and Ocean Springs. Others are in Hattiesburg, Laurel, Jackson, Tupelo, Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Birmingham, Alabama. If you are still reading this, be careful. We are thinking about you all.

Don’t worry, the funny stuff will be back soon, assuming I have electricity and/or internet service (Yes, we could feel some storm effects here in Atlanta.).

Set Sail with White Trash

2005-08-22T22:03:00.000-05:00

I’ve never lived near a great body of water, but I have had my share of aquatic adventures involving boats: As a 6th grader I puked off of a deep-sea fishing boat; As a high school freshman, I witnessed the filming of a Playboy video introduction (no nudity) on a ferry to Ellis Island; As a college student, I snuck aboard a private corporate dinner cruise ($150 per plate!) on the River Thames in London, ate, drank, was merry and did not get caught. As of this weekend, I went on a dolphin cruise with white trash in the Gulf of Mexico, so now my nautical adventures are complete.

As you’ve seen from a picture a few days ago, I’ve been on vacation in Florida with my wealthy in-laws. Most of my family’s expenses were paid by them, except for our excursion on the dolphin boat. It’s weird how some expenses on these all-inclusive deals with my in-laws are not covered. Maybe I should read the fine print. So this post cost me $42.35. Please send some money to help cover my business expenses.

We got on the boat at 5:30 in the evening. It wasn’t as hot as it could have been, but it wasn’t pleasant by any means. Mix the heat/humidity with lots of rednecks and the saltiness of the boat, and you can imagine how thrilled I was to have shelled out money to be there.

It took me about two seconds to turn my complaining into a mission for a good blog post. I set out trying to capture pictures of my trip.

First there was the girl wearing see-through skin-tight pants with a thong. She purposefully leaned over the rail a lot. I actually wasn’t worried about taking this picture.

Can you see the thong?

There were some foreigners on the boat too; no, not Mexicans. Real foreigners, from Europe or somewhere. All six of them videoed (with six video cameras) the entire trip from start to finish. Personally I can’t see what there was that was so interesting; maybe they were blogging too.

Foreigners with all kinds of cameras.

My family and I mainly stayed on the second level of the boat, because of ample seating and the breeze. We also knew that my daughter would throw up eventually, and luckily she did it on me and my wife. Our position allowed us a full show from a couple and his mother from Birmingham, Alabama. They are actually the inspiration for this blog. They were drinking Smirnoff Ice out of a cooler after they finished their Natural Light. They threw their Cheese Nips to the seagulls too. The whole boat laughed when one of the birds shit on the guy. My wife handed him a baby wipe. He used it to clean off his Smirnoff, but left most of the shit in his hair. Priorities.

At some point in the trip, the love bug bit the two of them, and, as evidenced in the photo below, the two became one. Ahhhhh, white trash in love. Does it get any better?

White Trash In Love, As a Mother Looks On.

One level below, there was a woman sporting a lovely full-grown mullet. I was able to sneak a picture of her also. I didn’t talk to her, but I’m quite certain she might be related to the lovers upstairs. However, she stayed in her corner because that was the only designated smoking area.

Classic Mullett.

And so, after two hours on the seas, our journey came to an end. We saw a few dolphins. My daughter threw up again, and we got off the boat. But I did not depart before getting my picture made in the captain’s chair with his hat on!

Life's a Beach

2005-08-19T22:25:00.000-05:00

I made it home from Las Vegas yesterday, and then the family and I drove to the beach to be with my wife's family (the other inlaws-not the MIL I wrote about last week). We are staying in a condo in Destin, Florida. I thought I would let everyone in on the view from our condo. . . .

Have a great weekend.

Icons of Southern Culture: Dogs

2005-08-18T16:24:00.000-05:00

Everyone I knew when I was growing up had a dog. I’ve made reference before to the fact that everyone who lives in the country knows everyone. This is a blanket statement that also extends to dogs. I can never remember a time as a youth when my family didn’t have at least one dog; often there were two. You never knew when you would need a backup.

Dogs that live in the country have a much different existence from their city counterparts. My wife and I have a dog, but he is nothing like those from childhood. My dog sits on the couch all day, and sleeps in between my wife and me at night. He has his own shampoo (it costs more than mine) and he eats gourmet dog food.

My dog’s opposite, the country dog, never gets to go in the house. He is content with a doghouse or sleeping under the car. He roams around as he pleases and he eats whatever he can find. That’s not to say that he doesn’t get dog food, but his supplement will include whatever the family had that night for dinner. These leftovers for the dog are commonly referred to as scraps, and are usually served by being flung out the backdoor as the supper dishes are being cleared.

There is also a difference in temperament in dogs that live in the country or at least from my experience anyway. All of the dogs my family had were very suspicious of strangers, loving of their master and generally lazy. Yes, lazy. Hey, it was hot and they lived outside, under a car, what do you expect?

As I write this, I will finish by telling you about just some of the remarkable dogs I’ve known (or know) from my first 28 years. This list is by no means complete, so please let me know who I forgot.

Tiny—This was my Beagle that I had for 11 years while I lived with my parents. The first dog that I actually took care of.

Maggie—My parents’ Cocker Spaniel of 14 years who passed away just a few months ago.

Odie—Another dog from my childhood. He was half-pit bulldog/half boxer. One of the best dogs I’ve ever known. However, he could scare the hell out of a stranger, but he never bit anyone.

Flash—This was a hound dog that we had. He was named after the dog in the original Dukes of Hazard series. Flash made a 2 mile circuit 3 times a day. On this circuit, he ate the scraps from my parents’ house, my grandparents’ and several neighbors. He never gained weight though because he was running at least 6 miles a day. If he didn’t show up on time, my grandparents would call and ask if Flash was sick!

Abner—I’m not sure of the breed of this one, but he was huge. He belonged to my uncle. I never went to my uncle’s house because Abner was one of the meanest sons of a bitch that ever roamed the earth. I can’t say that anyone was upset the day he passed.

Lard—This was my aunt’s dog. I barely remember Lard, but I’m still proud to this day that I had a relative with a dog named Lard.

Domino—Not much interaction with this dog of yet another of my uncle’s. However, he had the dog for 3 years before I knew that his complete name wasn’t “Dammit Domino.”

And so concludes my tribute to country dogs.

Update from Las Vegas

2005-08-16T20:42:00.000-05:00

I’ve been in Las Vegas for a little over 48 hours so far, and here’s what I’ve observed. . .

“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” For those of you that have not visited Sin City, the reasoning behind their new motto is simple: It stays in Vegas because it’s held up in a line somewhere! My experience: Sunday, stand in line for 35 minutes for checked bags at airport. Depart airport, stand in line with about 400 other people for 45 minutes waiting for a taxi. Arrive at hotel and stand in line for 20 minutes to check in. Room is not ready, so stand in line for 15 more minutes to have luggage checked. Proceed to lunch, stand in line for 15 minutes to eat at a café. Room is ready; stand in line for 15 more minutes to get keys.

That’s right, standing in line stays in Vegas. I guess “Come stand in line in Vegas” just didn’t have that much marketing appeal.

During all of my standing in line, I noticed 4 people within a 45 minute time frame wearing “CSI: Crime Scene Investigator” shirts. Is this a trend now?

Sunday night I got trapped in Caesar's Palace. There’s a line in Oceans 11 that refers to casinos being built like labyrinths to keep people in. This has to be a direct reference to CP. It took me over 30 minutes to find the exit. During the process I did see a pair of Kimpossible’s “New Day” houseslippers.

Later while walking down the strip I knew another Southerner was near me, because one of those atrocious oversized Ford Excursion limos drove by, and in a perfect Southern drawl, I heard “Holy Shiiiit.”

On Monday my class started. We had to do one of those silly get to know you games where we had to tell an interesting fact about ourselves. There was a lady there from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who said that her interesting fact was that she was a dancer. She then went on and on about the nude show she had seen the night before, and how she was trying to get tickets to go again.

The only other interesting person in my class is a guy from Japan. When he tries to participate in class, his English-as-a-16th-language skills get in the way. He made this 2 minute long comment about mayonnaise. It took me 10 more minutes to realize that he was saying “management.”

Last night I walked the strip, amazed at the number of people. Most people feel the need to wear clothes that are way too small when they come here, so if you decide to come, pack accordingly. The only thing that stood out to me last night was that I saw the same family twice. This is amazing because you would never see anyone twice. Perhaps the reason I noticed them was that they had their very young baby (4 mos or less) strapped in a stroller. They had this young baby out on the strip at 11:30 last night. The poor thing looked so overstimulated that I thought it would explode! Idiots. . . .

So, I leave for home on Thursday morning. I’ve gambled very little, thus I’ve lost very little. I’ll keep you posted on that.

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I want to send a birthday shoutout to my buddy, DDW, who turns 28 tomorrow! Happy birthday!

The visit

2005-08-13T22:11:00.000-05:00

“You have weeds in your grass.”

“The crown molding on your cabinets is loose.”

“Are you just going to let that baby cry?”

“She’s still crying.”

“You need to repaint the front porch. The paint is peeling.”

“You waste a lot of food. You should be saving those leftovers.”

Well folks, my mother-in-law is back in town for a visit! The above statements are some highlights of the first 24 hours. This is her first visit since the baby was born, so the baby has taken some of the heat off.

Last year she and my sister-in-law showed up for Thanksgiving. Most people think of the holiday as a long weekend, half a week at best. Not my MIL. She showed up on Monday night and left seven days later. By day four I was in a daily ritual where I would threaten to make them leave. Of course, my threat was only to my wife, who was in as much pain as me. I would cope by either claiming that I had upset stomach in which I would have to spend several hours in the bathroom, or making five trips a day to the grocery store. I would purposely forget things so I would have to leave again. All the time I was coming up with reasons why I had to go by myself. Fortunately my wife’s family is not opposed to the devil’s drink (alcohol) as my family is, so as they would have the first glass of wine with dinner, I would finish the bottle. You do what you have to in such situations! By the time the visit was over last year, I could be found in the fetal position on the roof smoking crack just muttering over and over, “Go home. . .go home. . .go home.”

After Thanksgiving last year, which I have deemed the worst Thanksgiving in the history of man, I put in a mandatory three-night limit for my MIL’s visits. My wife knows this and she has vowed to help me enforce it. We shouldn’t have to worry about this until Thanksgiving this year. We’ll see.

I realize as I write this that I have either mellowed from the experiences of my MIL’s visits, or I’m developing immunity. Perhaps it’s because my wife feels sorry for me, and allows me to get away with things I wouldn’t normally (like leaving a day early in the morning for a business trip to Las Vegas for a fun day). I say this because I haven’t included 99% of the stories from prior visits.

I close this by offering her services to any of you. If you are in need for someone to tell you what you are doing wrong with your landscaping, what household repairs need to be made, how you are screwing up with childraising, or anything about life in general, leave a contact number and I’ll see if my MIL can come for a visit, because it’s obvious yours is not doing her job!

Switchblade knives, illegal cable and a little bit of Geography

2005-08-07T20:03:00.000-05:00

Today my wife and I had an experience that’s a rarity these days in our nearly four-year married life. I told a story that she had never heard. I’m not sure how the subject came up, but I was talking about my ninth-grade geography teacher (or whatever history-type class I took in ninth grade). His name was Mr. White, and I couldn’t believe how much different education was 14 years ago—even in rural North Mississippi—from where it is today.

The school I attended was a K-12, so if you stayed the course, you spent 13 years there. Some actually spent 14,15, even 16, but that’s another story. This tenure, coupled with the fact that I had a brother four years older me, meant that I had known about the teachers I would have in high school for several years before I ever attended their class. Generally I always did better in a class where the teacher was a female. I attribute this to my not participating in sports.

I wasn’t sure how well I would fare in Mr. White’s class. My brother had been in the class with his daughter, and their not seeing eye to eye had caused my brother trouble while in Mr. White’s classroom. I assumed that this would pass down to me. This was common in our small school, where everyone knew everyone.

I tried to keep a low profile in Geography once the school year started. This wasn’t hard because most of my buddies had been separated into the other section of Geography. I don’t remember actually learning much about Geography. Perhaps that’s why I get so lost easily today? I did learn a lot in his class though. He was a fascinating talker. He was well traveled, and ran 2 or 3 side businesses in addition to being a teacher, one of those businesses being a travel agency. He also had a flower shop, and he had the high school Valentine market wrapped up. He could ramble on and on about his travels, about how the wholesale flower market worked, and about illegal Showtime descramblers for cable (if you were interested, you just needed to see him after class with a check for $47.00.)

In his spare time he also attended wholesale auctions. He would buy oddities in bulk, and then distribute them at school. He sold every boy in my class a switch-blade knife for $5 each. I look back at this today and have to laugh. His sales would take place after he finished the morning crossword puzzle. About five minutes into the puzzle, he would look up and ask, “Does anyone know a five-letter word for Hawaiian coffee?”

He was known for paddling—mainly if you interrupted his crossword! Even though I got my share of beatings while in school, I did manage to escape one from him, probably due to the low profile I mentioned earlier.

I think the turning point for me in his class was a day in October when I came in with 19 stitches in the side of my face. The previous night I, along with two friends, had been rolling another friend’s yard, when I was stopped by a barbed-wire fence across the cheek. Needless to say, when I had to return to school, I was embarrassed and in pain. I had been settled into Mr. White’s class for about ten minutes when he called me up to his desk. I was afraid when he told me to have a seat. He then asked about my scar, and proceeded to fill the rest of the 50-minute class with a story about how he had cut himself one time and a huge scar had resulted.

From that point forward, I was totally comfortable in his class. Who would have ever guessed that what I needed most, other than a plastic surgeon and several pain killers, was someone to make me realize that I was not the only person who had ever done something stupid?

Mr. White retired that next year so I didn’t get to have him for the other high school subjects he taught. And while I may not have learned much about geography, I did gain an understanding of the economics of wholesale versus retail (He was fond of saying that “Retail is for suckers!) and I still have my switchblade knife.

The Most Successful Failure of a Class Reunion Ever

2005-08-03T20:36:00.000-05:00

As I have written about in two of my posts, my 10-year high school class reunion was this past weekend. I even went as far as to make my predictions of what would happen. I was very wrong. . .kinda.

We had a two-part reunion. On Saturday there was a picnic at a local park for all of the classmates and their families. Later in the evening, we had a room reserved at a restaurant in a neighboring town for dinner, and this time was for adults only.

We had nine folks show up for the picnic out of a possible 42 graduates. I am still close friends with four people from my class, so I knew they would be there. Now as I am looking back now, I’m guessing that since four others showed up for the picnic, we the planners should consider ourselves lucky. We had a good time despite the heat. Most were buzzing about their families and about the dinner that night. Everyone, it seems, had talked to others, and they were going to be there that night. It seems that there were just too many scheduling conflicts during the day, or so we would believe.

That night only seven (plus spouses) showed up. I couldn’t believe that we had lost two since the picnic! We had a good time though, even though it was awkward for the three of us who had planned the reunion. Soon though, we all pulled our chairs around one table and were gabbing the night away. Eventually we noticed that the restaurant was starting to empty, so we decided to move the party elsewhere. Most of us were using our parents as free babysitters, so we didn’t want to pass up the chance to go out.

From the restaurant we went to the local bowling alley, where we had spent so many nights as teenagers. The big difference now was that we could LEGALLY drink their beer! Two games of bowling and several buckets of beer later, we called it a night, and swore to all get together again the next time we were all in Mississippi.

As for my predictions, here is where I was wrong and right. I had predicted three groups of people, the third group of people being those who are very cynical and jealous of the happy lives of the rest of us. I was right in my prediction in that I nailed their group precisely. I was wrong in assuming they would show up.

So, if people counts or percentages of the graduating class are used as indicators of how successful a class reunion is, then we were terrible losers, and should never try to plan anything again. However, if bringing a group of people, some of whom you haven’t seen in 10 years, together and everyone having a good time talking about the old days and showing genuine interest in each others’ lives today is an indicator, then we might have pulled off the most successful class reunion ever!

A picture of graduates from the class of 1995:

The TV has left the building, and the class reunion is on its way!

2005-07-29T10:24:00.000-05:00

I should have known better than to write in my last post that most of my entries are not journal-type, because that’s just what this one is.

During the 4th of July holiday weekend, we had a lightning surge that blew out two televisions. I bit the bullet and replaced our old model with a new flat screen, and the old one has been sitting in our living floor ever since. Last night I finally got around to lugging it out to the street for disposal today. Here’s the timeline:

8:44 p.m.: I ask my wife to help me with the door and cord so I don’t trip as I struggle to get the television out to the curb. She responds that she will as soon as she gets her shoes on.

8:49 p.m.: I sit the television on the edge of our driveway.

9:01 p.m.: Neighbor calls to tell us that television has just been stolen from our driveway.

I didn't think that the television would make it until morning in this fabulous ghetto in which I live. Wife and I even discuss that it might be gone before we turn in for bed. I never dreamed it would take less than 10 minutes. I hope the benefactors of my old television do not return it once they figure out it’s not going to work!

We leave this afternoon for Mississippi for my 10-year high school class reunion. I make my predictions for the reunion in one of my first posts back in May. Our class president, whom I’ve never really liked, did not do much to help us plan it. I think he googled one name for an address, and did not find anything then. Did he not think that we might have already done that before we distributed the list of missing persons? Anyway, I was talking with a good friend last night who is also a co-planner of the reunion. She and I made our prediction that he wouldn’t come. The moment I hung up the phone, I had an email from him saying he couldn’t make it. As with the television above, I’m amazed at the quick response time I’m having lately.

I can’t wait to be able to re-cap the reunion, although the post might be later in the week because I’m once again out of town next week for work.

A Housekeeping note that ends with thank you.

2005-07-27T21:52:00.000-05:00

July has almost passed, and the even hotter days of August are nearing. As I’m waiting for my Archive list to add another month, I realized that I’ve been posting to this site for 2 ½ months now. In fact, I’ve made 47 posts, had 1,808 visits and 3,680 page views. And since I have my comments delivered to my email, most of those visits and page views are from you good folks, not me checking for new comments.

First of all, I’ve kept this up much more consistently than I ever planned or even dreamed I would. As this is the most (or only) personal writing I’ve ever done, I’m surprised to see the style I’m taking on.

For the most part, there are two types of blogs out there that I read: journals and columns. I enjoy reading both, as they each lend me an insight to all of you mysterious strangers in my own blogger community. I follow your lives daily, or least a few times a week. Sometimes I don’t comment, but be assured that I’m reading.

I try to keep my own blog more in the “column” format, as if I were trying to amuse a newspaper audience through a regular feature. I’m more challenged by this. I would venture to say that anyone who has tried could tell you that the column method is difficult. Both formats capitalize on the humorous/happy/sad/unusual events that take place daily in our lives, but the column takes it a step further and attempts to filter it down to a focused story. I do still have journal entry posts from time to time, because it’s a great release.

Anyway, I say all of that to say this: Thank you to all of you who drop by and read the musings that make it to my “column.” Your comments by their nature and by their volume inspire me to keep writing. So keep stopping in to read what this Mississippi-boy-big-city-transplant has to say about the ordinary things that we do while the earth keeps revolving, otherwise known as life.

p.s.: Don’t think this is it, there’s a new post below this one!

Icons of Southern Culture: Planting Tomatoes

2005-07-27T21:31:00.000-05:00

Every year around this time, my mom calls to vent. She is normally not a venter, rather she follows a philosophy that was instilled in me at an early age: Feelings should be bottled up inside, not shared. Anyway, her ventings are about the massive garden my uncle plants every year, and how it ends up being work for everyone within a 20-mile radius.

Whether they have a garden or not, most people in the rural South always have a few tomato plants in their yard. I live in the city, and do not even eat tomatoes unless they are in a sauce, and yet I have 4 plants myself. The topic of tomatoes will be discussed at country stores for several months. The conversations range from deciding what type to plant, the fertilizer, how well the plants are growing, to how the hot weather’s “gonna get those tomater plants this year.”

For most people, gardening would be thought of as a hobby, a great leisure activity. Not my family. My uncle does nothing if it is not on a grand scale. To give you a better idea, last week the count was as follows:

4000 ears of corn
325 packs of peas
200 jars of tomatoes (This year he planted 285 tomato plants alone!)
and the list goes on.

The tough part is not growing such a bounty; it’s picking it, and even worse, preserving it. The preserving part is referred to as “putting up.” My uncle has what my mother sarcastically calls “the cannery.” It’s a shed (un-air-conditioned) behind his house that contains 5 very large butane cookers (think of an oversized turkey fryer), 5 full size freezers, and rows and rows of shelf space for the canned tomatoes. Any night during the first half of July he can be found in the cannery stirring 25 gallons of almost boiling tomatoes or corn or peas, chain smoking and reassuring himself that all of this was a good idea.

During the first and second week of July, my uncle, his wife, his 3 grown children and several in-laws take vacation time away from their jobs so they can put in 16-hour days to take part in his obsession. This is where my mother gets involved, and bitches every minute of it. My grandparents are getting too old and feeble to work in the garden any more, so my uncle plants for them too. Then it’s my mother—who advises against the garden every year during the early Spring, and promises not to help when the veggies ripen—who gets roped into canning for my grandparents. They will call at 6:30 in the morning to tell her that the peas are ready for picking if she wants to do it. She will decline and go back to sleep. They call back 20 minutes later to tell her that they’ve decided to try to pick them because it would be a sin to let it all go to waste. So, another 20 minutes pass, and my mother finds herself in the pea patch only there because of the impending guilt that would accompany the heat stroke my grandparents are bound to have if they continue picking themselves. Then she works for 2 days to get the peas “put up” and finally calls me to complain about it. And during these two weeks of the year, she is tempted to tell me that I made a smart move when I moved away, but she refrains, as this would undo all of the work she has done for the previous 50 weeks trying to lure me back to Mississippi.

In the end, everyone wastes 2 weeks of vacation, spends more money than it would cost to buy the veggies fresh every week for a year, and sends the entire family into an “I’m not talking to you anymore” mentality that will last for several weeks. And then my mother vows to never do it again.

So, I sit back and laugh at this ritual that is part of my South, and can’t wait to hear the tales from next year. And if I’m lucky, I’ll sneak out a few cans of fresh tomatoes when I’m home next time!

Icons of Southern Culture

2005-07-24T14:29:00.000-05:00

As promised earlier, I have decided to write an expose on Southern culture. Actually, this idea has been in my head long before this blog started. My ideas of the South are heavily influenced by my rural North Mississippi upbringing. Many of the themes here will not actually be uniquely Southern, nor will all of them be representative of the entire South. I will explore these topics in subsequent blogs. Depending on the other important interruptions of my life though, they will not necessarily be in sequential order.

So, what are the elements of Southern culture? They are people, places, things, events and attitudes. Will I touch on them all? Probably not, unless reader demand surges, and I have to quit my day job just to keep up. But if that happens, there will probably be a book deal and interviews on the Today show. I’ll worry about this when it happens. Honestly, I’m not sure that all of these topics have a whole post in them, but I will see where my writing takes me. Some on my list have already been described in earlier posts, but I’m including them in the list for completeness.

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

The funeral home
Fred’s Dollar Stores
Small town festivals
Planting tomatoes
Potluck dinners and “benefits”
Speaking (waving, saying hi, etc.)
The country store and Ledbetter
Fish ‘n steak houses
Storm cellars
The rural mail carrier
Selling cars out of your front yard
Hand-made pottery
The Baptist church revival
Dogs
Gravel roads
Sitting on the back of a truck’s tailgate on Saturday night in a parking lot

I don’t think this list is complete, but it will be a good start anyway. I’m going back to Mississippi next weekend for my 10-year high school class reunion. Perhaps I’ll think of more then. So, keep checking back.

Tuberculosis. Exactly.

2005-07-22T21:57:00.000-05:00

Life is funny in that two random events or thoughts come into my life at the same time. There’s always one thing connecting the two, and it seems to be happening more and more often to me. And the connection continues to grow even more random.

For example, I’ve been thinking about the word contagious lately. What does it mean to be contagious? A more casual approach is the act of “catching” something.

On Tuesday morning, I was struggling to eat breakfast, get the trash out to the curb and flush my system with as much caffeine as the law would allow, all before 6:00 a.m. I try to leave for work early so I can be at my desk by 6:30. As I was performing my morning ritual I had our kitchen television tuned into a news program. I heard something about “outbreak” and “hospital”, but I didn’t catch much of it. At this point I was still under 12 ounces on my coffee-o-meter, so I really didn’t care.

Once I got to work, drank some more coffee, answered the overnight emails, I was met by three different co-workers asking if I had been tested yet. I wasn’t sure what they were talking about. My wife phoned soon after to inform me. A nurse at the women’s hospital where we had our daughter in April had tested positive for Tuberculosis. Anyone who had a baby there from March to June needed to call and check in to see if testing was necessary. I am too ignorant about TB, and most other medical issues, to realize that I should be worried. The first thing I thought of was the hassle of having to leave work and go get tested. And trust me; it would have been a hassle. The hospital where our daughter was born delivers more babies every year than any hospital in the United States. It’s a baby factory.

Three hours later, my wife called back to let me know that we were safe and did not need to be tested. Apparently they could check the history of our stay there and determine that we had not come into contact with her or any possibly contagious nurses.

Okay, that’s a poor lead in to my next random thought, which is catch phrases, but hopefully you will see my point, if there even is one.

Catch phrases come and go. Some are more identifiable than others. I thought that the condition of falling prey to catch phrases was more of a high school and college thing, but I have been proven wrong. If you stay around people long enough, you “catch” their phrases or words. My two areas of exposure are work and home. I catch phrases directly from my co-workers and my wife. Indirectly, I catch phrases from my wife’s work and her friends. I’m not sure how long I use these words or phrases before I realize it, but once I do, a little bell rings in my head every time I hear it, and I wonder how long this one will stay around. Here are some I’ve noticed lately:

The hottest word going right now for people I work with is “exactly.” This is used as an expression of agreement whenever someone is talking. It usually gets repeated more and more as the agreement intensifies. An illustration:

Co-worker: A long detail about some new process at work.

MoN: “Exactly.”

CW: More detail getting to the point.

MoN: “Exactly.”

CW: One final statement that invokes my response.

MoN: “Exactly, Exactly. I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

Another word that my wife picked up late last year and that I caught from her is the word “So.” She and I particularly use it on the phone to break silence. Mainly this is used in conversations with my father who likes to call and just sit on the line in silence.

One of my last terms from work is “QA.” This one could technically qualify as a phrase because the QA stands for quality assurance. We use this one incorrectly. To us, QA is a verb rather than a noun. “I’m going to need someone to QA this document.” To understand better, you can replace QA with “review”. This one is actually a trendy business term right now along with “best practice” and “brainstorming.”

So, be on the lookout for the phrases or words that you hear regularly. Try to notice how easily we all pick up the vocabulary of others. And try not to pick up Tuberculosis.

If you have noticed in my posts, I like to compare and contrast. I don’t guess I did any contrasting in this one, but I think it will qualify as my most desperate attempt yet to link two unrelated items. Exactly.

The Master of None Deficiency Series, Vol. 3

2005-07-17T22:41:00.000-05:00

This morning I got up at 4:15, showered, filled my travel coffee mug to the brim, threw my hiking poles and back pack in my SUV, and headed out to the North Georgia mountains. My destination was Hiawassee, which is near the Georgia-North Carolina border. Some friends of mine from Tupelo, Mississippi had been there for the weekend hiking, and I was going to join them for today’s trek. You might remember one of the group, The Happy Hiker. She comments on my site frequently and is a faithful reader. HH and her husband were celebrating today, because this would be their last link to having hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in Georgia. (They have also hiked links in most of the other states the AT winds through, including the northern terminal in Maine. Their dedication to the trail was what sparked my interest in hiking.)

I was excited to be getting back in the woods. With the baby coming this year, I have not hiked once since last fall. I even had new hiking poles with their tags on them that I got for Christmas last year. The poles were begging to be christened. I meet up with HH, her hubby and another one of their friends around 7:15. We left my car at the point where our hike would end later in the day, and then took HH’s car to our starting point. After the hike, we would then drive my car back to pick up hers.

Once we were on the trail, it was pure bliss. It was early enough in the mountains to not be hot, at first anyway. There was no rain, and the trail was not too muddy. Surprisingly, there was not much fog. I think the best part was that HH and I brought up the rear of the hike, so we gabbed constantly to catch up with what’s going on in each others’ lives. The foliage was breathtaking, and we were surrounded by blooming wildflowers. It could not have been any better. (Can’t you see here that I’m setting myself up for disaster?)

Our hike was a shorter one, only 5.6 miles, but there were some steep climbs and descents. In fact there were 3 of each. HH and I were so engrossed in conversation that we barely noticed the first one. However, but the second one, we were fully aware of the terrain. About this time we met a hiker leaning against a tree. He was out of shape to put it lightly, and the hills had caught up with him. We asked him if he was okay, and he nodded yes, as words were hard to come by in his winded state. A short time later we met his hiking buddy who was faring much better. In fact, we let him pass us, and we were going at a decent speed. We continued meeting people along the way, but not many were headed our direction.

By the end of the second descent, we talked to a young couple (college-age), who had hiked in to camp, and were starting to pack up. Soon we were on our way up the third climb. I was now thinking of cold water, a dry shirt and sitting down—preferably in a car with the air conditioner running full blast. The heat and fatigue had caught up with all of us. Finally someone said that they thought they heard cars on the highway, so we were nearing the end. As the noise got louder, we started going faster. I was thinking about making it to HH’s car. Then I remembered that we were hiking to my car, not hers. And then. . .

I REMEMBERED THAT I HAD LEFT MY KEYS IN HER CAR AT THE OTHER END OF THE TRAIL!

A panic came over me. Everyone was already grumbling about how tired they were. How could I break this news to them? I frantically checked my pockets for keys that I knew weren’t there, but I just had to be sure. They were not there. I stopped and told HH. She didn’t believe me because we have a long history of practical jokes. Finally I convinced her. By the time we caught up with the other two and let them in on my revelation, we were at the end of the trail.

They were not mad at me. I knew they wouldn’t be, but I still hated my stupidity. How could I let this happen? I felt awful. At the end of the trail, the in-shape hiker that we had met earlier was there looking all refreshed. We told him of our situation, and he said that he would be glad to take us back, but his out-of-shape partner had their car keys. We knew that he would be hours coming off the trail, and that’s if he was not on a stretcher! Half an hour later the young couple came springing out of the woods, and I almost ran to them. At first they did not seem too thrilled to be transporting HH’s husband and me to pick up the other car, but I did not really give them a choice. I think I was in their car before they were. We finally got to the other car, went back to pick up the others and my car, and soon I was on my way back home.

All in all it was a good trip, even though I haven’t done anything that stupid in quite a while. They assured me they were not upset, and HH even suggested that I blog about it.

Master of None’s Ability Not Mastered: Using common sense.

A visit to the funeral home

2005-07-16T09:57:00.000-05:00

Last night my wife, daughter and I went to the funeral home for a visitation. I think most people know visitation as a wake, but that’s irrelevant. We got there in a rain shower, and realized that we had left our big umbrella at home. So, I grabbed the baby and my wife tried to shield us with an umbrella just large enough to cover one person. We were a sight.

To try to get in from the rain, we ran to the first door we saw. We were only in a few steps before we realized we were in the back “prep” area. Okay, so this freaked us out a little bit, and we decided that we would rather find the front entrance in the rain. On our way back out, there was a man sitting in a dark room just staring at us. No clue who he was or what he was doing. The freakiness indicator was continuing to climb.

Once we finally found the correct entrance, we hustled in and were relieved to find the friends we were there to see. Almost immediately upon our arrival, baby girl decided to get fussy, so I volunteered to stay out in the hallway with her while my wife went in with our friends. The baby was pacified as soon as we found a chandelier and she had some good gazing material.

While I was sitting out in the hallway with her I noticed a table of brochures. Most of them were standard issue about pre-planning your funeral and burial insurance, but one stood out. The brochure read “Bereavement Travel.” Well, I just could not figure out what this was all about, and the front of the brochure gave no hints. The longer I stared at it, the more curious I became. I could not reach the brochure, and I wasn’t sure that it was appropriate for me to be looking for reading material. A few minutes later, the baby was occupied, and I was about to bust to find out what bereavement travel was. So, I got up, and started making my way to the table. I was almost there when the family we were visiting made their way out with a lot of other people, so I couldn’t get the brochure. My plan was to just stuff one of them into my back pocket and look it over on the way home.

All of a sudden, the baby let out a cry, so I new the wife would be there in less than a minute to see what I was doing wrong. True to my prediction, she made it in 35 seconds. I quietly asked her to pick up the brochure for me. She gave me that condescending look that says, “Do I have one baby or two?” Anyway, she wouldn’t let me have one.

Soon the baby was quiet again, and my mind was working overtime about bereavement travel. By this point, I had worked up a theory about travel programs for people who had lost loved ones. I thought it might be a cruise or something to take their minds off of their loss. I was picturing lots of people with fruity drinks being serenaded by Kathy Lee Gifford.

I started to realize that my fascination occurred because I now come into contact with very few things about which I have 0% knowledge. This is not a testament to my great wealth of brain matter, but simply, I am in a routine. I go to work and I take care of stuff at home, and that’s about it these days. So there’s not much excitement here for things unexplored. Maybe the real concern is that I was so excited about a funeral home brochure.

Soon it was time to leave, and I was making my last attempt to steal the brochure. I was almost there when a group of twenty people came onto the scene smashing my dream of a brochure about bereavement travel.

When I got home last night, I found the website of the company who produced the brochure. Apparently the whole business is to provide low-cost airfare to friends and families who have lost loved ones. That idea never popped into my mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an author’s note, I should tell you that I have a whole expose planned about Southern culture, and the funeral home back home is near the top of the list, so keep checking back.

Musings from Savannah, Georgia

2005-07-13T22:53:00.000-05:00

I’m writing this post from a hotel room on Wednesday in Savannah, Georgia. I might not get to post it until morning though because of such a poor “high speed wireless” connection. Why will the hotel not just be honest with me and admit, “We have a piss-poor internet connection, but you don’t need a cable for it, if it works in the first place.”? I should quit complaining about that though; because at this point I would rather they focus on cleaning my room a little bit more. For decency’s sake, I will not even describe my bathroom.

Okay, enough about that. Here are a few of my musings from the past few days in Savannah (I’m here for work, not vacation). For the past two days, we’ve had lunch at a local grill that is apparently a biker hangout. I have seen from the signs that at night it doubles as a daiquiri depot for those desiring some delicious alcohol beverages while in the convenience of their own car.

My co-workers and I are fish out of water at this place. We noticed on the first day that the clientele is 95% men. These men drink beer with lunch, flirt with the waitresses (all young girls, 18-25 years old) and play pool. I’m in fear most of the time that I’m going to get my ass kicked just for going to the bathroom or something.

Today, we sat near a birthday party for about 12 people. Apparently a group of the aforementioned men invited their wives in for the celebration. Someone brought in a cake from Kroger so it was official. Most of the women had tightly permed hair which gave way to a modified mullet, and everyone at the table was extremely tan. One from the party was running late, so the leader of the group kept announcing, “I’ll call him on this here cell phone.” He proceeded to call the guy, who was in the parking lot, because he was 3 minutes late. I’m fairly certain he just wanted to show off a new cell phone.

Anyway, all of this commotion had our waitress rattled. We were in a hurry—word of advice, never go to a restaurant in a Southern town if you are in a hurry—and asked our waitress if she could take our order for food along with our drink order. She flatly said no, and that we would have to wait until she took the drink order to the kitchen. I guess she was very process-oriented, and was not about to break her routine for us.

I have been working late at night, but if I had been free, I would love to have gone back to that grill tonight. Every table had an advertisement that tonight was going to be some sort of contest. I’m not sure what was going on, but it was the weekly Wednesday night “Dare to Win a Pair” contest, sponsored by Budweiser of course. I’ve been wondering all afternoon what this could be.

So, instead of trying to “win a pair” tonight, I’m stuck back in my dirty hotel room working. Maybe if we go back to the grill for lunch tomorrow I will see a Polaroid taped to the wall of the winner of the pair, whatever the pair is.

Well what do you know, that high speed connection worked after all!

Mosquitoes Talking

2005-07-10T19:50:00.000-05:00

The following conversation took place in my yard Friday afternoon among what seems like a million mosquitoes. Let’s listen as the mosquitoes converse:

“There’s that bastard who lives here. It looks like he’s going to cut his grass.”

“I’ll be surprised if he remembers how, he hasn’t done it in so long. Just look at this yard.”

“Okay, remember the plan. We’ve resisted the temptation to bite him all summer. All of our diligence has lulled him into a false sense of security that he is immune to us.”

“That’s right, we know he’ll be out here for hours based on the condition of his yard. We’ll wait until he gets the mower out from under the house, then it’s showtime.”

“I am going to take the neck area, but I’ll need some of you on his arms, and some in the bends of his knees. But we need the most of you to hit his ankles, and hit him hard. Bite, bite, bite!”

“By the time he realizes what is going on, it’ll be too late to spray some of that ‘Off’ crap on us.”

A few minutes later. . . .

“Everything is going to plan. We’ve got in 12 good bites so far. They are already starting to turn in to whelps. And so far, only one fatality. Look at that idiot dancing around in his driveway. All of his ghetto neighbors will think he’s finally gone crazy. Maybe he’ll run into the house for some relief and someone will steal his mower.”

“Ha ha ha ha.”

Yes, the mosquitoes did beat me on Friday. It was misery. After a shower, I covered all of the bites with a little Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. It works on mosquito bites too. So, if you are looking for me for the next few days, I’ll be the guy who is swollen and scratching!

It's Not the Heat, It's the Stupidity!

2005-07-06T15:03:00.000-05:00

In case you haven’t been outside in a week or so, let me give you this warning: SUMMER HAS ARRIVED. As you will read, I hate the heat. There is just nothing good that can be said for it.

My mom called a few days ago, and we were talking about how hot it is, both here in Atlanta and where she lives in Blue Springs, Mississippi. She made the comment that everyone complains when it is hot, but in six months they will be complaining again when it’s cold. I had to correct her on this. No one can ever claim that I’ve complained about cold weather. I love it. If my memory serves correctly pulling from my junior high science class, cold is defined as absence of heat. Praise the Lord; no truer words have ever been spoken.

I also made the comment that if my wife and I ever moved, I wouldn’t mind going somewhere that had mild summers and cold winters. Of course my mom was quick to jump on this and say that I wouldn’t feel that way if I had to shovel snow to get out of the front door. I started to argue back, but I felt it was a useless battle. I usually get in to this heated discussion with my friends from the North from time to time, and I never win due to my inexperience.

As for the hot days, I can only think of two good times when I can enjoy them: (1) When I’m at the beach, and (2) when I’m poolside. Considering that I at best get to the beach once or twice a year and that I do not have a pool, you can see why I have no great passion for hot weather.

The worse part about hot weather is having to go to work. From time to time I have to wear a suit (most days it’s business casual), and when it’s this hot, a suit is no fun. I will sweat all day. And then at the end of the day, I am rewarded by crawling into a car that has been baking in the sun in a parking lot somewhere, so instead of the normal 90 degrees, I get that wonderful 110 degree experience until my air conditioner can catch up. The upside for the winter: you always appreciate coming in out of the cold to a warm office, or leaving in the morning in a car that’s been warming up for 15 minutes. Ummmmm.

My last complaint about the heat, I promise, is that my air conditioner at home is running non-stop. I think it’s crying out to me saying, “Stop the abuse; it’s hot as hell and I’m tired of working.” Of course, with its constant running, I’m having constant thoughts of the electricity bill.

Continuing the theme of my post last week of Southern phrases, my friend Be sums up heat like this with: “It’s hotter than a whore on dollar night with a cash-paying customer outside!”

And don’t even let me get started on humidity. . . . . . .that’s another story for another day.

A study guide for an evening of conversation with my family

2005-07-02T15:37:00.000-05:00

The following is a list of words or phrases that it is necessary to master to follow conversations when visiting my family. I started this idea a few weeks ago, and was going after the idea of Southern phrases. A little bit into the thought process, I figured out that these are not necessarily just Southern, but specific to my own upbringing. I wish I had created this cheat sheet before my wife (girlfriend at the time) visited for the first time. She might not have been so lost.

Packed up to move—This phrase describes my mother’s house when it is cluttered. As I’ve written about before, she hates clutter. She uses these words only when she has been in a messy house as long as she can stand it. If she comes out with “This house looks like it’s packed up to move,” watch out, because massive cleaning is about to take place. She will usually calm herself by throwing away a lot of my father’s junk. A big fight will ensue. It’s sure to be entertaining.

Consequently, a few years ago my parents were preparing to move to a new house, and I thought I would be cute and say “This place looks like it’s packed up to move,” right at the moment when my mother was at her wit’s end. Not a smart move.

Look like I could jump—Similar to the phrase above, this one describes when one’s self looks messy. It’s a perfect description to what one looks like after a day of yard work, or other intense labor. This is a favorite of my memmaw and my mother, so I’m not sure who gets credit for it.

Tickle in my throat—I’m not sure where I saw it, but I read this on another blog recently. I thought this phrase was unique to my family, but I guess not. The meaning as I know it is two-fold. Normally, it means a scratchy throat, usually signaling the beginning of the common cold. When used by my memmaw, its translation is: “I need to order something over the phone from the JC Penney catalog. Would you come over here and place the order because I’ve got a tickle in my throat.” In other words, I’m not going to place this order, so you’re going to have to do it.

Rigamarow—This word describes any activity that involves a lot of hassle. Used in an example: “I had to go to town to buy something. The store was out of what I needed, so I had to find something else. Then it took me 30 minutes to check out. If I had known what a rigamarow this was going to be, I would have just stayed home.”

The Four Lane—This phrase describes the interstate-like highway that goes through our town. It will soon be a new interstate, but not for a few more years. I don’t think I need to do much more explaining here. There are four lanes people!

Down in the month of July—I had an aunt who passed away 11 years ago, but during her day she could be heard using this phrase to describe someone who was pregnant and was due in July. A little background here: I was raised in a family where the word pregnant was just not something that was said. There were strict rules on conversation topics appropriate for “mixed company.” These rules applied to anything that differentiated men and women physically. I was even taught that it was impolite for a young man to ask about health conditions of women who were sick or in the hospital. So, to avoid these strict social rules, my aunt would say that someone was going to be down in whatever month they were due. Now that I think about it, this sounds a whole lot worse than saying someone is pregnant.

Meet Yourself Coming—My mother bought a dress at Sears one time, and mentioned this to my grandmother (her mother-in-law). Grandmother said in her own unique offensive way, “You have to be careful buying clothes at Sears, because you’ll meet yourself coming in them.” I’m not sure what she meant by this, but I’m sure that it was derogatory towards my mother’s fashion choices in some way.

Sodeee—Baking Soda.

Oleo—Margarine. I have no idea where this one comes from, but most of my mother and memmaw’s recipes use this term instead of margarine.

The Intercom—My grandparents were over at my parents’ house when we were visiting last year, and something came up about computers and the Internet. Memmaw stated, “Pretty soon you’re going to need to get on that Intercom to buy a sack of flour!” We assume she meant the Internet.

A feller—My uncle’s term to describe a generic person trying to invent or build something. See illustration below.

Wideways—Again, another one of my uncle’s terms. It is some sort of cross between sideways and longways, but I’m not sure which. Used in a sentence: “If a feller could just get a 2 X 4 in there wideways, that would be all the support he would need."

In my formal education, I never studied a foreign language, but I think I should get some credit for speaking the form of English that contains the words above.

The Devil’s Pork Chops

2005-06-29T20:39:00.000-05:00

As a child I had a recurring nightmare, like many children do. My nightmare would usually end in me waking frantically, screaming and running to find my mother. She would console me, and I would forget until the next time the nightmare would visit.

The lead in my nightmare was the devil. Every time I dreamed the scenario, I would be in hell—literally. There were lots of rocks and fire. The devil would come out announce that dinner was almost ready. My curiosity would get the best of me, and I would sneak to the area where the devil was cooking. Upon my arrival, he would bring out a tray of pork chops, which were severely charred. The dream would end with my being forced to eat the pork chops and the devil was laughing hysterically.

I had this dream for years. Almost everyone involved in my childhood knew of my fear of the devil’s pork chops. That’s what the dream would later be called, “The Devil’s Pork Chops.”

Fast forward to Fall, 1997. I was a junior in college, living about 3 ½ hours away from home. That particular semester I had not been home very much, so one Sunday in November my parents met me halfway to give me some money, and to take me shopping for all of those college necessities on which I was running low. We spent a few hours together, including a meal at a local barbeque joint. Barbeque restaurants featuring pulled pork are a dime a dozen in the South. After a fish and steak house, they are next required staple.

After I ate my barbeque pork sandwich, I was soon on my way back to school. It was near 8:00, so it was dark outside. I was cruising along the interstate when I started feeling sick. At the rate this feeling was compounding, I decided to stop at the next exit. I found a Texaco truck stop, and did not even make it inside before I got sick. A few minutes later I was back in my car and I thought I was okay. I was nearing the edge of the parking lot when the second, much stronger wave of sickness came over me.

I ran inside to find the men’s restroom. Once there I made it to a stall, and proceeded to get sicker and sicker. I’ll spare the rest of the details and jump to half an hour later when I was on the bathroom floor sweating profusely. I didn’t have the strength to get up. I’m not sure how long I lay there, but it had to be near an hour. I was fortunate to have a newfound toy called a cell phone. I could not get through to my parents though. I tried calling everyone whose number I could remember back at school, and could not get anyone there either. I finally had the operator break in on my parents’ conversation. They instructed me to go to the cashier and ask her to call an ambulance. I had to crawl out of that bathroom. It was a sight to behold, as I am dragging myself through the Texaco to find help. The cashier called an ambulance and instructed my parents where I was being taken (they were still on the cell phone). At some point two of my friends at school were called, but I’m not sure how, because I would wake to find them at the emergency room, and they would take my car back to campus.

The ambulance took me to a rural emergency room that was as substantial as a roadside lemonade stand. As I entered and exited consciousness, I remember telling the doctor that I needed him to knock me out. More drugs! Most of the night is a blur except I do recall being rolled out to the lobby to go to the restroom numerous times. It was the only one in the building. Not a good thing. My parents arrived eventually and took me to a hotel after the discharge around 5 or 6 a.m.

I had a severe case of food poisoning. This happened on a Sunday night, and I would not resume a solid food diet again until Friday. It was misery.

As a result I vowed never to eat pulled pork barbeque again. For a year or two afterwards, just the smell of it would almost send me into heaving. I have held true to my vow to this day. I do eat pork, just not in barbeque form, and only if I am around while it is cooked. The physician caring for me during the ordeal told me that pork barbeque is a common cause of food poisoning because it is one of the only foods that can be spoiled yet have no strange odor or discoloration.

Ever since this incident I have referred to pulled pork barbeque as the devil’s meat. My boycott has been difficult, because living in the South and not eating barbeque is about as common as a vegetarian in a meatpacking plant. I did not even make the connection between my current day avoidance of barbeque and my childhood nightmare until a few years ago. Maybe my early childhood trauma was some sort of warning for the nightmare I would live that night through as a college student on a Texaco restroom floor. Then again, maybe I was just a screwed up kid that would later pick the wrong roadside barbeque pit in which to dine. Anyway, I am always running from the devil’s meat!

The Case Over Daycare

2005-06-28T14:49:00.000-05:00

This morning I had been at work for about 2 hours when my printing needs led me to the copy room. The copy room is a gossip pit stop. Luckily for me, and unluckily for my co-worker—we’ll call her Flo—I did not have shoes on that made noise. I had been standing in the copy room for about 15 seconds when she made the statement describing substandard parents as “those people who would send their kids to daycare.” I know I was not mistaken because I have heard her views on this subject last year before she knew that my wife and I were even expecting a baby.

Flo realized I was in the room and quickly changed the subject. Her subject change incriminated her even further because she was complimenting me on something very superficial. In other words, I can’t think of a way to kiss your ass fast enough. I never said anything, and she is pretending that I did not hear anything.

What’s crazy about this is that I have stumbled upon such a conversation about the evils of parents who send their children to daycare twice in the past week. Very similar situation, so I will not elaborate.

As of next week, my wife and I will have a 3-month old daughter. So far, everyone has survived and we have not gone to jail. We have learned a great deal about baby care, including how to swaddle a baby, how to make bottles, how to cure diaper rashes, and the list goes on. Even more importantly, we have learned that there are many people with very strong opinions about child raising, and if you are not in line with their opinions, you are basically not fit to have children. Keep in mind that some of these people have not had small children in 30 years or so, but they still feel that their inherent knowledge about the subject trumps any current, researched knowledge I might have.

Yes, my wife and I have chosen to have our daughter in day care. I am not going to say more about the one we have chosen, because I should not have to. Up until now I have attempted to justify our decision to use daycare, but no more. The decision was ours to make, and make it we did. Our daughter is in daycare, and if anyone thinks we’re horrible for having her there, please keep it to yourself, because we are not interested in hearing it! We do not make comments about the choices others make when it comes to child raising, and trust me, we could!

The only thing worse than the scenario I described above is when someone else tries to justify our decision after they’ve been caught discussing it. This basically plays out with this phrase: . . . .most daycares are horrible, BUT I’m sure the one you use is okay.

Congratulations Penn

2005-06-28T07:06:00.000-05:00

My co-worker Penn will be traveling to Philadelphia this weekend to wed his longtime girlfriend. Tex and I would like to offer our best wishes, so we are taking him out to lunch today. I won't be able to recap the wedding as Tex and I were not invited; if we'd known that we might not have spent all of that money on a wedding gift from their Bloomingdale's registry! Just kidding Penn, best of luck.

Excerpts from the weekend in Mississippi

2005-06-27T19:59:00.000-05:00

I thought about trying to fashion one of my usual posts from my weekend trip to Mississippi, but instead will just give excerpts. This is a change from my usual approach in that I will not be using the experience to write a story. After you read the excerpts, you will see how even the most talented writer would have difficulty tying all of this in together!

Saturday morning

We had a 9:30 flight to Tupelo from Atlanta. Delta just started offering these non-stop flights in June. As a result, they are not very full (and it’s doubtful if they ever will be) and usually end up on the weekly webfares email. So, we jumped at the cheap tickets and decided to subject our daughter to the perils of air travel. We had a good trip both ways, so I can’t complain really. The funny incident was when we were boarding in Atlanta. There were only 9 people on the flight, and I think all were returning home to Mississippi. My reasoning is that every person boarding stopped to ooh and ahh over our baby, and then offered their assistance with our car seat/car seat base/stroller combo. There is so much truth to Mississippi’s nickname, “The Hospitality State.” Only on a flight to Mississippi would everyone be so helpful.

Once on the plane, the flight attendant made the announcement that Tupelo was the flight’s destination, and if this was not your destination, you should get off the plane. My wife chuckled, and we both wondered what someone would think if they ended up in the Tupelo airport by mistake!

Saturday afternoon

Over lunch at my parents’ house, we were discussing the family garden. My parents usually try not to have much to do with this; it’s mainly the baby of my grandparents and my uncle. I’ll not go into too much detail here because I plan a separate post on this later, but my family plants on a massive scale. So, there’s too much leftover, and they usually let the neighbors in on the bounty. They have erected a sign that reads, “Pick on the halves.” I had no idea what this meant, and I can usually follow country folk talk. After some investigation, I found out that this means that the guest harvester can have half of what he picks. For example, if he picks 6 buckets of black-eyed peas, he can have 3, and he must deliver the other 3 to my family. This system depends on the honesty of the neighbors, so when I write the gardening post—probably in late July—I will be telling of the theories behind who’s stealing what.

Sunday morning

We went with my parents to church. They attend a country Southern Baptist Church with about 80 members or so. This particular Sunday was the start of the Summer Revival. For those of you not familiar with the South or SBCs, I don’t even know where to begin to explain this one. (My blogger buddy Derick has a good depiction on his blog on May 9..)

First of all, there is a guest preacher. He’s usually from a neighboring county. The one chosen for this summer had actually been there some 15 years before, and I still remembered him. He did a lot of yelling, he sang, he cried, he yelled some more. He started to wrap things up 45 minutes later with THREE stories about how people in the church gave him money. He then abruptly burst into a song and finally said Amen. My wife has been in church her whole life, but this was a first for her. She grabbed her purse when he mentioned that he remembered when nighttime services would go until 2:30 the next morning. I think she was in shock.

Apparently she wasn’t the only one in shock, because three pews ahead an old man woke up with a snort after his wife gave him an elbow to the ribs, and the man to my left was even moved to stop clipping his fingernails. At about this time, my 2 year old neice started yelling that she was going to St. Louis and to JCPenneys.

This will go on nightly for most of the week, and be accompanied by many potluck suppers. Almost as soon as it is over, plans will be underway for the Fall Revival.

Sunday afternoon

We drove to my paternal grandmother’s house for a visit. She had been to a baby shower and was just returning home when we pulled up. We followed her out of her car to the door. She went in and closed it because she had no idea we were there. Once we got in the house 5 minutes later, she was telling all sorts of gossip. After we left we drove by my uncle’s house that lives next door, and he was sitting in the front yard in a lawn chair holding a rifle. He didn’t wave.

Sunday night

We got our daughter to sleep, which is a hard thing to do in a house where everyone wants to hold her constantly (trust me, we are paying for this tonight now that we are back home; she is crying non-stop). Afterwards, we were sitting on the front porch with my parents drinking iced tea when the cows came to the fence in the near-by pasture. My wife commented that she had never touched a cow, so my father would not rest until she had. That’s about it.

We caught an early flight this morning, and I was at work by 9:30. It was a great trip!

The Master of None Deficiency Series, Vol. 2

2005-06-24T22:25:00.000-05:00

From time to time you hear me refer to my neighborhood as the ghetto. While this is true in theory, there are some very nice homes near mine. Thus I am in the constant silent war of having a good lawn. I refer to this as a silent war because I can feel my neighbor’s mocking laughs as they look at my yard. If you did not figure this out, I am the loser of the grass battle.

I’m not sure why I can’t have decent looking grass. I have Bermuda sod, which is supposed to be easy to maintain, but I still can’t get it right. My front lawn looks like a dye job gone bad; my green grass has dead grass highlights. Maybe this is because I sprayed my whole yard with Round-up during February. I did this last winter after I took some of the weeds from my dormant yard to Home Depot for analysis. The helpful lawn and garden man said, “Son, it looks like you’ve got a bag of weeds there.” Well, no shit. Maybe this should have been a sign to me that I should have gone elsewhere for advice. Still, I read books and do research on the web, all to no avail. Last year I even invested in a whole cycle of Scott’s Turf Builder. The Scott’s products are very expensive, and they even got me for the matching broadcast spreader. I fell for the line on the fertilizer bag that read, “For best results, only use a Scott’s brand spreader.”

At least my front yard is consistent. My back yard is a completely different story. There I manage to get 10-foot square sections green and weed-free only to have the neighboring sections go bad. It’s not the same salt-and-pepper scenario as the front; it’s more dead-and-alive. And do not forget the areas that get too much shade, which are STILL dormant from the winter. I’m thinking that as we near July I should give up on those sections completely.

I do not care for grass maintenance, and maybe my lawn is picking up on my negative feelings. Yeah, we’ll say that’s the problem. I like the landscaping portion, just not the lawn care. I’ve been like this my whole life. I think there are two major reasons underlying my lack of ability today: (1) As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in the country. People who live in the country generally do not worry about grass. They do not lay sod or sow seeds. The “lawn” is just whatever is green and pops up naturally. So I am new to this caring for grass like it’s a newborn child. (2) I did not mow as a child/teenager/college student. I have a brother who is four years older than me, and we struck a silent deal that I would do the inside work, and he would do the outside. One year I attempted to cut the grass for the summer, but I burned up three mowers by using them without oil in the engine. Funny how my parents never asked me to cut the grass again.

I’m three months into the grass-cutting season, and I’m to the point that I just do not care anymore. It’s about to be dry anyway, so I’ll just let nature finish it off.

Master of None’s Ability Not Mastered: Obtaining/Maintaining a green, weed-free lawn. Even worse: Not caring one way or the other.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This will be last post for a couple of days. In the morning the family and I are off to Mississippi where we are co-hosting a double baby shower. It should be fun to see old friends and introduce our daughter to them. We are going by plane because this month Delta started offering non-stop flights from Atlanta to Tupelo, and since the flights are empty, the prices have been cut. We’ve never had the baby on a plane, so I’m sure there will be a good post next week about this, in addition to the material from the trip to Mississippi alone.

The Search for Lost Youth

2005-06-22T22:10:00.000-05:00

Last night I went on a search for the good-time-waiting-to-happen side of me that I seem to have lost a few years ago. I found it, visited for a few hours, and then said good-bye until we meet again in a few more years when I’m starting to feel old again. Here’s the story of our reunion.

I have been in training at work this week. We’ve had software consultants in our office trying to teach us a new method by which our department will operate effective next Monday. Our European colleges joined us from our foreign operations. As a result, we’ve had the task of entertaining them at night to give them a taste of Atlanta.

One of our activities for the week was that last night my department secured our company’s luxury seats to see an Atlanta Braves game. Management went all out by providing an open bar and dinner buffet. Unlike my previous job, this is a rarity, so my co-workers and I wanted to make the most of it. During our mindless email exchanges during the day’s training, I let my buddies Penn and Tex talk me into going out barhopping after the game. Word of this spread, and soon we had a group of 12 along for the outing.

Like many people at this transitional age I have found myself in called the late twenties, I rarely go out any more. And if I do go out, I can usually count on being back on the couch before the late evening news comes on. Somewhere along the way to homeownership and fatherhood I lost my desire and ability to spend countless empty hours in a bar. While I once did this regularly, now my days are filled with trips to the Home Depot and the grocery store.

We left the game after the seventh inning. Most of us had changed into our going out clothes, which I determined that now I have one outfit for the task at best. I was already having the guilty feelings of knowing that my wife was at home taking care of our daughter, and I was out acting like a college kid. Penn had suggested a bar that none of us had heard of, but that was normal considering we weren’t much on the bar scene. We arrived before him, and were shocked that they wanted a $7 cover charge for a bar that was empty. We declined and took up residence at a watering hole a block away. 30 minutes later our whole crew had arrived and the pitchers were flowing. It was great. For a brief time I forgot about the guilt and my tiredness. We talked and drank and talked and drank. Soon, some started to clear their tabs, and I decided I should too. I made it home before 11:30, and was in the bed soon afterward.

After I went home, the more eager crowd went from bar to bar, dancing the night away. Cheers to them. I heard the tales today at work, and witnessed their relief once they saw the last European auditor trail in this morning after they had lost him at some point. I also saw the tiredness that no coffee can cure, and the look in their eyes that signaled they might pass out at any moment. Around mid-morning I think I saw someone make a mad dash to the restroom for a good round of morning-after sickness.

I was to go out with this crew again tonight, but I declined so I could take up some fatherly duties and give my wife a break. So instead of dining in an expensive restaurant with an unlimited bar tab, I was leaning over the bathtub giving my daughter a bath during which I quacked like the rubber ducky splashing around. She found this humorous. I’m happy with the turn my life has taken, and if that makes me an old fart, then so be it. I raise my glass to my buddies that gave me a fun night out last night. I also raise my glass to those who can still do this and function the next day. And by the way, tonight that glass is filled with milk!

The Ten People You Meet in Wal-Mart

2005-06-18T23:02:00.000-05:00

Okay, I’m taking a shameless stab at a post with a similar title of a best-selling book. Hey, at least I changed the number and location.

Whatever your thoughts are on Wal-Mart these days, it is safe to say that it is one of the centers of rural southern culture. Every small town has a Wal-Mart. Now that I live in Atlanta I never go to Wal-Mart because the hearts of large cities are the only places where the retail giant cannot get a foot in the door. Usually every time my wife and I find ourselves back in Mississippi, we also find ourselves in a Wal-Mart at some point to pick up the shaving cream I forgot or some dog food.

Several months ago one of my friends who also moved away from Mississippi after college asked me if I ever took a good look at the folks in Wal-Mart. He was curious as to whether my perspective on these people had changed since I had moved away. So, on my last return home, I set out on a mission to Wal-Mart to test his theory. As a result, I’ve compiled the list of the ten people you meet in Wal-Mart.

The overweight woman with 6 screaming kids. If you will recall, I described her and her family in great detail in a previous post about an emergency room visit. She will be found in the toy section chasing kids down the aisle and uttering very audible threats that would make Saddam Hussein plead guilty!
During the summer time you are sure to find an abundance of teenagers, especially at the stores that stay open 24 hours. This is a great place to escape from the family for a few hours, so they will usually be there in groups to buy something that they determined they couldn’t live without. If I recall correctly . . . it’s also a great alibi when you are not out shopping, but need a few hours to have a few beers sitting on someone’s tailgate on an old dirt road. But I digress; sometimes actual shopping is taking place.
You are bound to see the lady who really thinks she’s too good to be at Wal-Mart, but she just couldn’t avoid the trip any longer. She is usually well-dressed, and is trying to make her purchases as quickly as possible, so her exposure is limited. Do not get in her way, and for God’s sake, do not try to use coupons if you are checking out in front of her, because she will not tolerate it. She is a master at coming up with the go-to-hell look.
Once the shopping is complete, someone has to ring up your purchases. I think there are two personality types who are cashiers. One is the person who is thrilled to be working at Wal-Mart. Not only is she making money, but she gets to socialize (everyone in small towns knows everyone else). Plus, she can gossip later as to whether you are buying name brand peanut butter or store brand, or whether you might be having plumbing problems because she saw the Drano in your cart.
If you did not encounter the cashier described above, then you are in the line being operated by the cashier who would rather be anywhere in the world other than Wal-Mart. He can handle all of your purchases and never say a word. A truly talented bad attitude can even avoid making eye contact. You are certain to be in this line if you happen to be purchasing an item without a barcode or that is grossly mis-priced. He will do as little as possible to help you and does not care if the line backs up to the health and beauty department. This can be fatal if the lady from #3 above is behind you. Drop everything and run.
In the grocery section or the paper products you will find the shopper who is very organized. She has a list that is sorted according to the aisle layout, and this shopper has about $85 worth of coupons. Her total bill at check-out will be approximately 76 cents.
You might play your cards right and end up in Wal-Mart on the same night as your cousin as she is sneaking around trying to buy a pregnancy test. If you come face to face with her, she will break down and tell you that she has already taken three tests, and all three were positive, but please do not tell anyone! I can’t even make this one sound like fiction.
You finally make it to the line to check out, and you notice after a few minutes that it is not moving. Upon further investigation you realize that there is a family ahead that has to have $1,100 worth of merchandise. In addition to groceries for 2 weeks, they have a television, several bags of charcoal and a few tropical fish swimming around in a plastic bag. I would suggest you find another line, because they are going to be here all night, and I’m betting that their credit card will be declined.
Stores that have a food section usually have demo ladies. If you had been in Wal-Mart 12 years ago, you would have found my grandmother doing this. We avoided Wal-Mart at all costs if my grandmother was working. She would tell us everything on sale and how she bought 12 cans of coffee last week because it was marked down to $1. Then she would have to introduce us to all of the other demo ladies, including a person dressed up as a chicken. This would not have been so bad if we did not meet the other demo ladies every time we went. But if you sweet-talked her and if you were paying with cash, she would go through the line with you and swipe her 10% discount card.
The last person can only be found in predominantly Southern Baptist towns where the sale of alcohol is legal. It’s the guy trying to buy a 12-pack of Bud, and he is trying not to be seen by other church members. He’s easy to spot: He has on a cap, dark glasses, and is moving at the speed of light.

So, next time you are in Wal-Mart, scan the aisles and see if you can spot all ten of the people described above.

Ghetto Life-Country Life Comparison Continued

2005-06-16T20:06:00.000-05:00

HAIR SALONS

Due to the recent positive response of my last post where I compared ghetto life to country life, I have decided to throw in another installment. Also, due to lack of planning for this post, I do not have photos to back up my country examples, so you’ll just have to trust me.

I think marketing professionals worldwide should be required to take a course in Mississippi Hair Salons. There is no lack of creativity here. Most of the salons that come to mind have some reference to hair, and still have a very catchy title. For example, there’s a hair salon near Jackson—okay, I’m dropping my big city I-speak-appropriately tone here and I’m just going to call it a beauty shop—with the name “If Your Hair is Not Becoming to You, Then You Should Be Coming to Us.” I’m going out on a limb to say that there was no marketing firm involved in the concept of this name, being as the shop is operated in half of a doublewide trailer. It’s not that someone lives in the other half of the trailer, it’s just cut off and walled up.

But let’s get back to the name. We’ll call the owner/operator/marketing director/head stylist Wanda. Wanda has let the reader know that hair is involved, and that miracles can be worked. There are not any expensive salon products for sale in glass cases, but if you’re itching to buy something, Wanda probably has an Avon catalog somewhere. I’ve never been there, but I bet you could get in the tanning bed out back for $4 after your hair-do is finished! The great thing about salons like these is if you can’t make it during normal business hours, Wanda will probably cut your hair in her kitchen late at night while you have one of her best bath towels draped over you as you sit in one of her dining chairs.

Now for my ghetto comparison. . .

There’s been a lot of activity a few blocks from our house at a new salon called “Divine Destiny”. During the year and a half we’ve lived here, we’ve seen our fair share of salons open and close in a few months. But this one seems to be doing something right. As you will see in the picture, Divine Destiny is spelled out in vibrant purple neon. With a name like Divine Destiny, you can only the imagine the hair-dos that come out of this place. If you can dream it, we can do it!

One big difference from the country beauty shop is the hours of operation. These places go all night. I guess in case there’s a weaving emergency, it’s nice to have someone to call. My wife and I drove by at 11:00 a few nights ago, and there were about 15 cars in the lot. From our peeking through the windows, we could see people lined up waiting their turn for the magic to be worked. I can’t comment further as I’ve never been to one of these establishments. Maybe I should consider a weave!

The Divine Destiny Hair Salon

I should add here that the Divine Destiny salon is just one block away from a salon that shares a waiting room with a 10-minute oil change joint that also provides paralegal services. I’m hoping the Divine Destiny can overcome the competition that this multi-function service palace provides. I’m also hoping that the Divine Destiny is not mistaken for a strip joint, because we sure don’t need that crowd in the ghetto. We’ve got enough problems as it is.

I hope you can see why beauty shop/hair salon owners are impressive. The successful ones wear many hats from marketing director to business manager to the person who sweeps up the hair at the end of the day. This is just another bridge in my comparison of country life to ghetto life.

Shoes and Gutters, Wigs and Beepers -- There's a connection here

2005-06-13T19:04:00.000-05:00

A STUDY OF THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN COUNTRY AND GHETTO LIFE

When school kids ask teachers why they need to learn about history, a common response is that you have to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going. In trying to make sense of some of life’s mysteries, I’ve taken this lesson to heart. I believe that through this I can explain why I live in the ghetto.

Where I grew up in Blue Springs, the area was mainly rural countryside. There were a few businesses scattered around though. One visiting the area would find a post office, a country store or two, a few fish and steak houses, and several beauty salons. There’s one establishment that I cannot categorize: Coleman’s Discount Shoes and Gutters.

Coleman's Discount Shoes and Gutters.

Coleman’s is owned and operated by a man named Hugh Baby. Yes, he goes by that. Hugh Baby has a vast selection of shoes, including cowboy boots. I’ve only been to Coleman’s once or twice, but while there I did get a pair of cowboy boots. As most of you do not know anything about me, let me say that cowboy boots and me go together like oil and water.

When I was in the eighth grade, I felt the urge to buy a pair of boots. I’m not sure what came over me, but I saved up and bought them. They were brown, and even had all of the stitching on the toes. If you only saw my feet, I looked like a bona fide cowboy. That is, until you saw me walk. I never got the walk down. I felt and looked extremely bow-legged. Wearing cowboy boots is an acquired ability, and I never mastered it (hmmm…Master of None).

I gave it a shot for a few months though before the boots found a permanent place in my closet. I still have them, and squeeze into them once every 3 or 4 years when I get invited to a costume party. I have a pair of Wranglers that are purposely 2 sizes to small to complete my cowboy costume.

Okay, enough of the history portion, let’s look at the present and future. I cannot get away from the stores that specialize in two completely random products. In my ghetto, there is a store that sells Wigs and Beepers. While I did not venture in, I think it’s a beauty supply store, so I estimate that the beepers are just on the side. I didn’t realize that anyone other than doctors and volunteer firefighters still had beepers in the age of cell phones. I guess I don’t know too many people that wear wigs either, so maybe my putting these two together is beyond my experiences. Whatever they are selling, they are doing something right because the parking lot is always packed. I should add that in reference to the other store described, I never heard about anyone going in for some discount shoes and coming out with gutters!

Wigs and Beepers in the hood.

My wife and I are happy living in the ghetto, although you will hear me complain sometimes. I guess I was being prepared from an early age to live at my current address. I have been taking pictures, and in the future plan to do an entire expose on life in the ghetto. I can only speculate what is in store for me at my next home. It’s too scary to even think about.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. I risked my life getting the photo of the wig and beepers store.

Salmonella, Butt Paste & Ebay

2005-06-11T14:18:00.000-05:00

It’s been an interesting week for the wife and me. Last Friday we found out that our daughter has a bacterial infection. I might as well go ahead and say this, as horrible as it sounds. She has salmonella. If you will recall, I told a story two weeks ago where we were in the emergency room. She’s been sick all of this time, and we were 10 days into it before we got a diagnosis.

My wife and I are ashamed of ourselves for letting our daughter get the infection. We can’t help feeling this way even though we know there’s a good chance that’s it not our fault. Every time the doorbell rings we think it’s a toss-up between the nominating committee for the worst parents of the year award or the Department of Human Services. I’m not kidding about this last part. By law in the state of Georgia, our doctor had to report us to the DHS! We’re just a Lifetime movie waiting to happen.

What makes this situation worse is that now everyone wants to bring us the answers to child raising and solve the problem. We’ve been advised on nipple boiling, pets and babies (the Grandparents have been against the dog since the day we found out we were pregnant), formula water, traveling, and the list goes on. Often the grandparents think our practices are questionable anyway, so this just adds fuel to the fire.

I should lighten this story now be telling you that our daughter is well again. She has almost completed her round of antibiotics and we are seeing a great deal of improvement. Still, there has been a lot of crying for the past two weeks. We have found one God-sent product from this ordeal: Boudreaux's Butt Paste. I’m not kidding here. This stuff works miracles. It practically eliminates diaper rash on contact. It works so well, I’m thinking about using it around the house. Of course, I don’t necessarily want to be seen with a tube of butt paste. I attached Boudreaux’s website above, but I’ve had some difficulty making it work. Regardless, you’ve got to love a product that has the nerve to have the words “Butt Paste” in the title.

Boudreaux's Butt Paste

As I was writing this post, my grandmother called to thank us for the birth announcement. She felt she should give me some advice on formula water also. Then the conversation led to taping silver dollars to infants belly buttons if they poke out, then to her hysterectomy, and finally to Ebay. I must say that I was most alarmed by the Ebay discussion. (She wanted to know if it was “one of those dot com things.”)

If you do not hear from me for a while, you will know that the Department of Human Services has me in their custody. I’ll see if they will trade my one phone call for some Internet time.

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be accountants who go on job interviews in the Mississippi Delta with a mouse in their car.

2005-06-09T19:15:00.000-05:00

During the summer between my junior and senior years of college I lived at home and worked at a bank. I don’t know why I’m making such a declaration because I lived at home every summer while I was in college. Anyway, I got a call from my college advisor wanting to know if I was interested in a job position at a local accounting firm in a small MS Delta town. I don’t know why I told her I was interested because I knew I wasn’t. But, I went anyway. As I’ve mentioned before, I had always wanted to escape my small-town surroundings. For me, to not escape would be stagnant, but to go to ANOTHER small town would be regression. At least I knew where the Wal-Mart and Sonic were in my own small town.

I was to interview on a Saturday because I did not want to take time off with no pay from my job at the bank. So, I got up on a Saturday morning and headed out. I was driving my 9-year-old Mitsubishi Mirage that had recently been through a hailstorm, thus obtaining a temporary nickname of Dimple. I was on the interstate heading to the MS Delta. Let me comment here that I lived in Northeast MS, which is not the Delta, and is in no way similar. I grew up with trees and hills. The Delta is flat for as far as the eye can see. (I believe the MS Delta competes every year to be the most impoverished area of the country—I know I have some Delta readers, please comment on this. Ahhhh—another selfish plea for comments.)

Anyway, back to my passage on the interstate. I thought I saw something quickly move in the floor below the passenger seat. I was almost positive. I started to think about this. I looked around and saw 2 empty Lance Peanut Butter and Crackers packages and an empty Snickers wrapper. There were other various food items. I realized that I might have a mouse in my car.

At this point I should tell you that I come from a long line of mouse haters. I’m terrified of them. This secret leaked out when I was in junior high. One of my friends found a dead mouse in a school warehouse and threw it at me. I’ve just never liked anything that can move that fast.

Once the mouse-in-the-car revelation came to me, I almost ran off the interstate. I pulled over immediately and jumped out of the car. I guess I thought the mouse would follow suit. Well, it didn’t. So eventually I realized that I had to get back in the car and make it to the job interview. I’ll pick this part of the story up later.

Soon I would find myself in the sleepy Delta town where I was to interview. The guy I talked to owned the accounting firm, and he was basically looking for someone young to be his apprentice, and eventually buy him out in 10 years or so when he retired. It was a smart move on his part, and would have been an amazing opportunity for someone looking to settle into a small town and one day be the country club president. He even took me to his house and sweetened the pot by showing me a camper parked on his vacant lot. He said I could live there rent-free as long as liked. It was at this point that I decided it was time to leave.

So, I perform the polite, “I’ll think about it and let you know.” Ten minutes later I was in my car on my way home. I was starving (surprising no lunch on the camper tour), so I stopped by Sonic before I got back on the interstate. I grabbed the food and hit the road. I wanted to get home because I was going out with a friend later. I had been on the interstate for about an hour when it hit me that I was in the car with a mouse and a smelly bag of Sonic leftovers. Once again, I almost ran off the road. Not wanting to risk my life again by pulling over the interstate again, I found a rest area just a few miles ahead. I emptied the car of any food or anything that could possibly be tasty to a mouse.

During my car’s purging I failed to notice that I was not alone at the rest area. There was an old full size van (think pre-minivan) with a disability license plate. As I was making my last trip to the trashcan, an older man came up to me to ask what I was doing. I just assumed I was making a spectacle of myself chunking stuff out of my car. I explained to the man that I thought I had a mouse in my car. He just kept coming closer, and then I noticed that he was doing something obscene to himself. I can only handle one catastrophe at a time, so I had to forget about the mouse, and figure out why he was so interested in me. Seconds later this naïve young man put two and two together. I raced back to the car, and almost hit him as I sped away. This wasn’t as dramatic as it sounds because a Mitsubishi Mirage will only go so fast.

The remainder of the trip was uneventful. I got home and my parents asked how my day had gone. I just said fine and left it at that. My friend picked me up that night for our outing, and when she dropped me off later, I opened the trunk, and there was a dead mouse on a trap baited with peanut butter.

The Master of None Deficiency Series, Vol. 1

2005-06-08T20:52:00.000-05:00

I'm going to use this post to start a hopefully infrequent side series that will get back to my original blog title Master of None. I will highlight an area in which I am seriously deficient and will describe the challenge this deficiency brings to my life.

Tonight I was leaving work and stumbled into disappointment. Someone had broken into my SUV in the parking garage. One of the side windows was completely smashed and a beach towel was hanging out the side.

Surprisingly, I did not get angry. I mainly felt stupid. I park in a lower level garage without an attendant. It’s one of those operations where you poke your money all crumpled up into a big box once you find the parking space’s corresponding number. I do this because it is cheap. One of the first indicators that the place was shady should have been the day I parked beside a homeless man still asleep in space #28 and I was in #29. I knew that there had been a few cars broken into, but I did not heed the warning. I rationalized it because I park beside Volvos and Lexus SUVs and BMWs. I did not think anyone would want my almost 6-year-old Ford Explorer. At least I was partly right because he did not want the vehicle, just a backpack on the back seat. I was relieved that he did not take our extra base to our daughter’s car seat. The humorous part of this is that he went through my CDs and declined to take any. I’m not sure what that says about my music choices.

He is sure to be disappointed once they open up the backpack. The thief will only find my gym shoes, shorts and t-shirt and a few toiletries. Oh, and I think I had a stash of Band-Aids in there. I just wish that I had worked out today so at least the clothes would stink. I do lament the loss of the shoes though. I’ve had these shoes for almost 2 years, and had made the decision to get some new ones soon. My sadness comes from the fact that I was going to have a reliable “second” pair of sneakers. It was going to be nice to have an extra pair in case I stepped in dog crap or something. Oh well, I guess I’m once again 2 years away from a second pair of shoes. Hell, I don’t even have a first pair now.

So now I’m left with a smashed window that’s covered up with a plastic trash bag and packing tape, a few packs of McDonald’s picante sauce that they left behind, and a few CDs that range from Chopin to Willie Nelson. At least with a plastic bag in the window I’m starting to fit in to my life in the ghetto. Who knows, I might even be asked to go on a lawn mower pilfering. I could use the extra money now that I’ve got to pay for a window and a more expensive garage.

Master of None's Ability Not Mastered: Using good judgement in selecting parking facility. This incident made the master's list because it has happened before! Will I ever learn?

My Smashed Window.

My ghettofied smashed window with its covering.

Office Alerts

2005-06-07T19:55:00.000-05:00

Today at work I received an email that went out to my team (9 members) from one of our team members. It read, “I took 6 hours of vacation yesterday rather than the 4 that I had originally mentioned. I will make this time up during the remainder of the week.” After I laughed at it with my co-worker Tex through 20 something mindless back-and-forth emails, I got to thinking about how many of these I receive. If I count correctly, last week—keep in mind it was a 4-day week due to Memorial Day—I received about 7.

They range from “I missed an hour or two BUT WILL MAKE IT UP”, to “Susan called, she’s running late due to traffic on the interstate, but will be in shortly.” The latter will usually be followed up 20 minutes later with “I just wanted to let everyone know I’m here now. Sorry for being late. ~Susan.”

I find this humorous because I began my career at an international firm that was staffed with mostly young professionals. We were in high demand and very busy, thus we never worried about sending emails like this. We did not ask to take vacation, we just did. You would have to do something really stupid to get fired. I don’t think during my 4 years there that I ever saw an email stating that someone was running 20 minutes late because his dog was sick.

Maybe this change in attitude comes from the fact that now I work with many middle-aged adults who can see retirement at the end of the tunnel. Not only did they start their career in a different era than me, most have all been at the ugly hand of unemployment due to downsizing. Every day there is a look of fear that anything they say might get them fired. Every rule is taken literally. Not just literally, but many times taken to the extreme. Then again, maybe they are just paranoid.

One lady told me today, “I’m sending you a recipe over email. I tried to send it from my home computer but I couldn’t get it to send. I really do hate to send something like a recipe over my work email.” She went on and on. She’s probably losing sleep wondering if I ever removed it from my inbox. She’s freaking out over a recipe, and I’m checking several blogs and planning a class reunion over mine! She would probably pass out from such a thought. Maybe my casualness toward email and the Internet stems from always having it. I received a laptop on my first day of work and have had one ever since.

My boss is from the same background as me, and I asked her today if I was taking this too lightly; am I just a few emails or web clicks away from being fired. She told me that if I were she was too. So, as predicted I’m not going to worry about it.

However, I think the next time I receive an email telling me someone is running 10 minutes late, I may reply with, “I’m going to the bathroom now. I might even stop and get a cup of coffee on the way back to my desk. I will be making up the 10 minutes next Thursday night if anyone needs me.”

My First Trip to a Bar

2005-06-05T10:30:00.000-05:00

Let me say this first: This story is not going anywhere near the direction you might think. This is not a tawdry tale of underage drinking or wild exploits. As the title lends, this story details my first trip to a bar. It was unintentional and very scary at first. My first sips of alcohol came at age 18, over a year after this tale.

During high school I always had a job. Beginning at age 14 (I don’t think employment age laws were in effect/enforced back then), I worked for a grocery store for 3 years. It was a very small grocery store, and I met many interesting people.

One lady in particular always intrigued me. Her name was Martha. Martha was probably in her late 30s at the time. She owned a home decorating showroom in a neighboring town. She was educated and cultured, something I did not run across much at the time, so I was usually engrossed in conversation with her from the time she entered the store until I loaded her bags in her car. We would talk about everything from musicals, her business, education to travel and cuisine (Keep in mind I knew her shopping list by heart).

Martha was very involved in a local community theatre outfit. That year she had been named director of the summer children’s musical. After learning that I was a pianist, she told me I should audition for the assistant music director spot. I wasn’t that interested in being a music director to small kids, but the position would land me a spot as one of the pianists in the orchestra. So, I auditioned.

The audition went well. She called me a few days later to tell me that I had the job if I wanted it. It would be a demanding schedule during the last month of my junior year of high school. There would be 5 rehearsals per week for 6 weeks. She also told me that the theatre was in the middle of its largest production of the year currently, Hello Dolly. She wanted me to go with her to the performance the next night so I could meet the theatre regulars. I was on cloud nine.

The next night I got all dressed up and met Martha at her house. She had failed to mention that we would be picking up two of her friends on our way to the performance. We were an odd lot. Three women in their 30s and a 17-year old guy. We got to the show and I was captivated from the first note until the final curtain call. After the show these ladies gossiped about how “Dolly” had gotten her part because of her ex-husband’s money and connections, and how they could think of a long list of better sopranos.

Once the show was over, I figured we would drop the friends off and then go home. After all, it was a school night for me. My party had other plans. We (They—I because of inclusion by association) had been invited to the cast party to celebrate the opening night. So, we went to a local bar. I had never been in a bar. My parents had never touched alcohol, and I had not been around it very much except for having a few uncles who had to keep going out to the car at Thanksgiving. I had no idea that one drink didn’t make you drunk. From my upbringing, I believed that bars were seedy places where only seedy people hung out.

We were some of the first to arrive. Now keep in mind that by this point I’ve broken out in a cold sweat because I was so nervous. What if someone saw me? What if they told my parents? 10,000 thoughts were going through my head at once. We grabbed a large table at the end of the actual bar. The waiter came over, and the ladies ordered drinks, and I ordered a Diet Coke. I think I had $4 in my wallet, so I was nervous about how much my Diet Coke was going to cost. I guess the waiter thought I was a very young designated driver, or realized I’m a first timer. Regardless, the Diet Cokes were free, which was fortunate considering I downed about 15 of them. Anytime I’m in a stressful situation I drink and eat at lightning speed.

After a few minutes I calmed down and started to take the place in. I don’t think I spoke for the first half hour as I’m gazed at the surroundings, and even more interesting, the people. I was actually watching people have drinks. I just could not believe it. I was fascinated. I strained to hear every word from the nearby tables, plus I was following the conversation at my own table. The drink orders were a foreign language to me. I had no idea what anything was. I was not really sure of the difference between liquor, beer and wine, so the mixed drinks were blowing my mind. I waited all night for the guy named Tom Collins to show up!

By the time we had been there two hours, I was having the time of my life. Maybe it was just all of the soda talking, but I was like a country kid in a big city toy store. I knew I couldn’t have anything (nor did I want it at this point), but there was no place I would have rather been. I felt like such a grown up. There’s a thrill like no other when you are doing something that you are not supposed to for the first time, and you think you might actually get away with it.

Around midnight we left. I was not sure of the sobriety of those three ladies, but I didn’t care. We laughed and talked all the way home like we had known each other forever (The other three had of course). Once I had finally made it back home, I realized it was a quarter until 1:00. My parents did not question where I had been. They were sound asleep. It’s a good thing too, because it would be another year before I would hone my alibi creating skills.

I ended up turning down the Assistant Music Director job because I had already agreed to be the pianist for a wedding that same weekend. I never again got to go out with those three nearing-middle-aged ladies either. But I still remember that night as quite an experience. Let me know if you see Tom Collins.

Saturday's recap

2005-06-05T10:24:00.000-05:00

I thought I would recap yesterday’s wonderful Saturday. My wife and I tag-teamed taking care of our daughter, and in the process got the house cleaned, the dog bathed and the laundry done. Yesterday morning we had a pleasant surprise when one of our friends called to offer baby-sitting services so we could have a night out. We got dressed up and went to a fancy restaurant because who knows when we will get the opportunity again. We even splurged for dessert. The restaurant was called Wisteria and I would highly recommend it if you are ever in the Atlanta area.

One other thing of note: I let my closest friends from my growing-up days in on my blog. I figured that they could enjoy some of the old memories, as they lived through many of the events I describe. Plus, they can probably help fuel me with future stories.

Have a great Sunday.

Referral for Kimpossible's P.W.T. Detective Agency

2005-06-04T11:43:00.000-05:00

The following letter will be sent to Kimpossible's P.W.T. Detective Agency. For more information, see her link to the left in my sidebar.

June 4, 2005

Dear Kimpossible:

I have been following the case of the missing owl and I understand that you might be looking for some assistant P.I.s for your P.W.T. Detective Agency. I am writing this referral letter for my father and grandmother based on a recent conversation I overheard while visiting them in Mississippi. As you will see from their conversation, their ability to solve any irrelevant unidentified persons case is magnificent.

Conversation from last Saturday. . . . .

Grandmother: I met a woman at the funeral home the other night that I bet you would know.

Dad: Who?

Grandmother: Well, her name is Imogene McNamemadeup. She’s from over in Yalobusha County, but she’s lived around here most of her life.

Dad: I don’t think I know her, BUT is she any relation to the McNamemadeups that live in Lee County?

Grandmother: I don’t know about that. She’s married to Jim McNamemadeup that works in the tire store.

Dad: I don’t think there’s a Jim at the tire store.

Grandmother: He hasn’t worked there long. He worked a whole career as bus driver.

Dad: Wait a minute, are you talking about Jim who has a sister that’s a teller over the National Bank? Now what was her name?

Grandmother: She was Sue Nutherfakename before her second husband, but before that she was married to a Smith. He was no-count though. I think he used to drink and run around on her. But anyway, Sue and Jim grew up around here back when God was a boy. I hadn’t even thought of her in 30 years.

Dad: I think I do know who you’re talking about. Did Imogene used to be a schoolteacher?

Grandmother: Yeah, she was teaching at the school back when the basketball team was so good and went to the state playoffs.

Dad: Didn’t her son do some time for selling dope?

Grandmother: Yeah, now that you mention, I think he did. He got himself straightened out and he’s the Youth Minister now at a Baptist Church. . . . . . . .

____________________________

And so the conversation continued until Imogene and all of her family had been identified.

As you can see, these two can track down anyone over two cups of coffee.

If you are interested, let me know and I’ll forward their resumes.

Sincerely,

Master of None

The first Saturday of June

2005-06-04T08:53:00.000-05:00

With a new day hope springs eternal. It is Saturday morning, and I’m refreshed after a good night’s sleep. This is so important to me as last night I hit a low-point. Let me say that today I’m feeling very ungrateful for last night’s unloading to my wife. I had one of those weeks that left me drained. I’m not sure why. Everything seemed to be getting out of control. Everyone tells a new parent that having a baby changes everything. They just forget to tell you how it changes and what can be done to maintain your sanity.

First of all, we have a sick child. This is our first dealing with a sick baby, and it can consume you. I think the worst for us as parents is the guilt that we are responsible for the sickness (which we are probably not), and the helplessness of not knowing what to do. We’ve been to the doctor’s office 3 times since I wrote about the emergency room. She is taking medicine now and seems to be feeling better though.

The weather has not helped the situation. I cannot cut my grass because everything is soaked outside. Atlanta received rain every day this week. I think the sun is lost. Isn’t it funny how we complain about lack of rain, then we complain when it comes? In addition, I have a dog that is seriously contemplating depression, as he has not played outside all week. This is only made worse by all of our time being consumed by the baby.

But today is going to be better. My wife let me sleep last night so I agreed to get up for the first feeding of the day. I actually woke up before the baby, so I was able to get a pot of coffee made before I had to give the bottle. My daughter even gave her seal of approval on this Saturday by giving me lots of smiles and grins. My wife is still asleep, so maybe she can catch up on the huge sleep deficit she has accumulated. And now the baby is back asleep. I think early Saturday mornings are the best time of the week. Everything is quiet and the coffee is made. My dog is by my feet and I’m blogging again.

We decided this week that if we were going to send out birth announcements, it had to be done soon. Otherwise, they would be called Christmas cards. To my blogging audience, I will attach the picture.

My daughter's birth announcement photo. She's 8 weeks old.

New story delayed

2005-06-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

I intended to write a new story for tonight, but my 8-week old daughter's projectile poop has occupied my time instead. So there should be new material over the weekend. I've got to go now, and spray some more carpet cleaner. What fun...

Slave to the Almighty Dollar

2005-06-01T13:44:00.000-05:00

The month of May has brought interns and new hires to my workplace. Our office is abuzz with college students and recent grads. Las tweek, I overheard a discussion about the first paycheck, and how excited they would be to get paid. It brought back memories of how broke I was during grad school—not that I was rich during undergrad—and all of the schemes I came up with to make money.

I went to grad school at The University of Mississippi. During this time I was in that awkward financial situation many students face who go on for an advanced degree full time. I wasn’t necessarily under my parents’ protective wing, but I wasn’t able to survive alone either. This lead to desperation unlike any I’ve ever known.

During the school year I worked as a graduate assistant (GA). GAs at Ole Miss graded papers and proctored tests. It was easy money, even if it was not a lot. Still, for the amount of work I did, it was a fairly decent rate per hour.

Once I realized that I could not live on this alone, I started seeking other ways to make money. As a pianist, I would play at any church, wedding or reception that I could find as long as they were paying. I couldn’t afford pro bono work. I did get a call on a Thursday from a desperate wedding director whose pianist had broken both of her wrists the night before. I tried not to extort the situation, but let’s just say it was my most profitable wedding to date. I justified it by the short notice.

I had to study a great deal to keep up with the master’s degree curriculum, so I was seeking things that I could do on my own time. One of these adventures involved me being a professional shopper. Don’t get your hopes up that I had found a job wandering the aisles at Neiman Marcus. Instead, I would go to Sonic two or three times per week, order a pre-determined menu item, and time the carhops on their delivery skills. Then I would answer a 50-question survey about customer service and restaurant appearance, and fax it in. For this I would get paid $10.50, plus the cost of my meal. I enjoyed this a good bit, because I had to eat anyway. Plus, I was so financially challenged that Sonic was 5-star to me. This lasted a few months until the employees at Sonic figured out that I was a shopper. One time I got my order in less than 45 seconds. Amazing.

My next venture never really got off the ground, but it sounded fun as hell. I got some information through a mail order program about being a telephone psychic. Basically they would train me for two hours on how to keep people on the line and how to ensure they were comfortable talking to me. I would make my own schedule, which was a plus as I was a night owl at the time. For example, if I wanted to work on Mondays from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., the psychic service’s switchboard would know to forward calls to me during those hours. I almost did this just for the entertainment factor, but I got worried that my mom would call during one of my shifts.

Since the psychic gig did not work out, I decided I should try a more traditional part-time job. I found an ad in the newspaper for a desk clerk position at a hotel. I thought this would be an ideal solution. Little did I know what lay ahead.

The hotel where I sought employment was an independent. Once I was employed there and had some snooping around time, I figured out that it was bad enough to actually be dropped by a big-name chain. I filled out a copy of the application (a copy of a copy of a copy from the old chain) and turned it in. The front desk manager offered me the job on the spot. I’m not sure why I never questioned how I was getting a job so easily in a town of 12,000 students. I accepted immediately, and it was decided that I would train for a week with the daytime desk clerk as my schedule permitted. I was start on my own the next weekend. My regular shift was to be Saturday and Sunday nights from 3 p.m. until 11 p.m.

I don’t claim to be a genius, but I had everything down by the end of the first day. It was not that hard. I didn’t have to worry about checking people out of the hotel since I worked evenings, and people didn’t usually complain until checkout time came. So, my focus was left to checking people in and making reservations. I did have to try to get the best rate I could for the hotel. Since we were not under strict hotel-chain orders, we could charge most anything. We usually tried to get $60 per night, but would go to $55 if anyone asked for a discount. I had the authority to go as low as $45. One night I saw the General Manager go as low as $35 under the condition that housekeeping did not have to service the rooms.

Hotels in small college towns have a meager existence. They are fully booked 9 times per year (7 home football games, move-into-the dorms weekend and graduation). The real money is made on the football weekends. By law, the city of Oxford allowed a maximum of $199 per night for any hotel room. So, on game weekends the hotel would bump the price up to this maximum and require a 2-night stay. We had people offer more money if we would boot someone out of their room.

The rest of the time would find the rooms only 5-25% full. For me as the desk clerk this was an ideal situation. There were several weekends when I did not see a single person from the time the day shift left until the overnight shift started. It was great. I did most of my studying while working there on the weekend, and occasionally even got in a nap or two. One time a guest did have to wake me up.

Yes, there are several perks to working in a slow hotel. I used the lobby as my personal entertaining space for when my friends would all come by on Sunday nights to bring me dinner. If I were behind with laundry, I would just take them to housekeeping, after I finally figured out how to use the commercial dryer. Remember, many of these times there was no one on the entire property but myself. Once when I wasn’t feeling too well, I just checked myself into a room until I felt better.

There are a lot of interesting folks to be met in a motel. There was a cocktail waitress from the lounge next door that came through several times most evenings. I feel like a lot of her tips were not coming from serving beer (perhaps an indirect result of the beer though). As she wandered through the lobby one evening I heard her tell the man by her side “I’ve only got a 20-minute break.” You can make of that what you will.

I remember checking in guests who would request rooms on the backside. Some guests would ask me to screen calls, and one man asked me to tell his wife that he had called ahead to say that he would be checking in late. Of course, I refused, but I did give him one of the rooms on the backside.

The assistant director of housekeeping was a lady (I use the term “lady” very loosely here.) named Joey. The mere sight of Joey screamed “I’ve been to hell and back 4 times, and would love to tell you about the trip.” She had long stringy gray hair and she was missing most of her teeth. She was married to a giant of a man who was about 25 years her junior. He never said much, and he had some of the worst body odor I’ve ever encountered. He was the maintenance man at the hotel. Joey was his unofficial backup. I think she enjoyed a clogged toilet as much as he did. Together there was nothing that they could not fix.

One Saturday I had switched to work the day shift, which meant that I was around Joey and her husband all day. She was commenting on the desserts that the restaurant next door had prepared for the day. I asked her why she just didn’t go buy one. Her reply was, “I would, but all of that sugar kills my tooth!” It was all I could do to contain myself.

I think my experiences at the hotel made me appreciate my first professional job even more. I quit a month before graduation. The last time I was in Oxford, I noticed that the hotel-chain had once again granted its name association. I also realized that I would sleep in my car before I would ever stay there.

Community News

2005-05-30T20:40:00.000-05:00

During my weekend trip to see my parents, I picked up a few copies of the hometown newspaper. The newspaper is published twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday. The main edition is on Wednesday, and Friday is just somewhat of a follow up.

Due to the timeliness of publish dates, there is no national or world news. There might be a few stories about state government, if it’s applicable. My parents always turn to the obituaries, but I always sought out the divorce listing. Yes, they list everyone in the county who got a divorce. Twice a year they also have a multiple page spread detailing who’s delinquent on their property taxes.

As I’ve not lived there for 5 years, 10 if you count college, I can say that the highlight for me now is the community news. For those of you who do not understand rural life, here’s the breakdown: In every county there is a county seat that is located in the county’s only town. There is a distinct difference between the county and the town that I will probably explore one day, but not now. Within the county there are several post offices, usually the larger communities. A community is an area that is usually not over 3 or 4 miles deep. There can be several communities within a post office’s domain. Thus, there are many communities within a county. Sometimes the there can be two or three communities within a county with the same name. Such communities are usually located on opposite sides of the county, and naming a few families who live there can make a quick clarification.

In the local newspaper, some communities have a weekly column. The column tells what went on at the Baptist church last week (I forgot to add in the description above that every community has a Baptist church), who’s sick, who’s well again, who had supper guests, who’s going on vacation, etc. Basically, it’s a country folks’ society column (now there’s a play on words!).

I am beginning to see that I am not doing this justice in my description, so I will add pieces from one such column. Note: Names have been changes to protect the innocent.

. . .I am having trouble with my feet again and had to go to Tupelo for treatment. While we were there, we had Judy Long fitted with a heart monitor at Dr. Feelgood’s office, which she has to wear for 48 hours. It was very uncomfortable. We returned the monitor on Friday, when Judy went for her checkup with a rheumatologist, Dr. Wellagain . . .

. . .Susan and Tom Fryer had guests Saturday night. Susan’s nephew Josh and his family visited. They were grilling hamburgers.

Thomas and I worked in the yard all day Saturday, Thomas part-time in the garden.

We went to “Smith’s” for some good fish Saturday night. Nearly all of James and Mary Morris’s family were there except them, so we decided we better check on them. They were both a little under the weather but we really enjoyed our visit. . .

. . .[On Sunday] At 2 p.m. a retirement reception was given in the Family Life Center for Kathy Maben and Sue Parker.

The tables were decorated with fresh flowers and delicious refreshments were served, finger foods and punch. There was a very large crowd and more were coming as I was leaving.

Congratulations to both ladies and, as the cards said, “Goodbye Tension – Hello Pension!”. . .

. . .Remember on 4-29, no evening service but a church-wide social at 6 p.m. in the Family Life Center.

Since I am not even writing most of this material, I cannot claim that I am making a valid literary contribution with this post. I do think it’s very funny though.

A New Shade of Gray

2005-05-30T11:01:00.000-05:00

Where my parents live, interracial relationships are just not accepted. You can imagine my amazement when I arrived home this past weekend, and my parents were telling me about a biracial child that they were taking care of, and how supportive everyone was. Upon further investigation, the love child was an accident, and here’s the story.

It appears that one of my father’s black cows jumped the fence into a neighbor’s pasture. The neighbor has all white cows, including a big white bull. I guess the two could not escape the forces of passion, and now several months later they have a permanent reminder. I do think my father’s black bull is getting suspicious though. The mother is too ashamed to even look at him.

I grew up around cows, and have seen my share of these “accidents”, but I have never seen such a dramatic result. Usually when a cow and a bull of two different types mate, the result is a calf that looks like one or the other, or spotted at best. The calf I describe above is solid gray. This is very strange. I’m surprised it did not turn out like a zebra.

Mother and calf.

I should give the photo credits from this weekend to my wife. We rode around for an hour while she hung herself out the window taking pictures for my blog. Yes, she now knows about the blog. I couldn’t explain why I wanted pictures of cows and other strange things without telling her.

Weekend in Mississippi

2005-05-29T22:49:00.000-05:00

We got back a few hours ago from our weekend in Mississippi. I have a full house again, and it’s great. The trip back was our longest time yet in the car with our daughter, and she picked today to have her first experimentations with diarrhea. You can imagine how fun it is to change one of those diapers in an Exxon parking lot with a barking dog in the rain.

On Friday I took a day of vacation so I could be there when my wife and daughter arrived. I was early or either they were late. As soon as I got to my parents’ empty house (they were picking up my wife and daughter), my grandparents called and asked if I had eaten dinner (in rural MS, lunch is dinner and dinner is supper). Of course I had not, so I went across the road to their house for a Southern delicacy. I had fresh cream style corn, green beans, black-eyed peas and cornbread. Actually I had 3 pieces of cornbread. Oh, and don’t forget three glasses of sweetened iced tea. I have never liked black-eyed peas, but eating them just seemed to be the right thing to do. The whole time my Memmaw was saying, “You probably don’t even want this ole country food.” She couldn’t have been more wrong.

My grandparents were so excited to see me that they even turned off Days of Our Lives while I was eating. Anyone who watches a soap understands the importance of this, because Friday is the day to watch. While I was there I talked them out of several back issues of the hometown newspaper that will be the source of many entertaining posts later!

When my daughter arrived she was sick. She had been spitting up her food for several hours. After two calls to our pediatrician back in Atlanta, it was decided that we needed to see a doctor. The problem with this is that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia requires you to go to the emergency room if you are out of state and fall ill.

Around 6:00 we made it to the emergency room. I’ve only had to go to an emergency room twice fortunately, and I dreaded taking my daughter to one now. It’s not that I doubted the care she would receive. I was worried about the waiting room. Anyone who has ever been to a small-town emergency room can probably relate to this. There’s always some family there with 6 kids. The Mother is about 150 lbs. overweight and contrasts greatly with her much shorter husband. The Father is dressed in a pair of Wranglers, a tank top and a Nascar cap. You don’t see the Father very much because he’s rushing outside every 10 minutes to smoke and to check on the 3 other kids they left in the car. At the time we went in to see the doctor, the Dad was trying to feed all of the kids out of a vending machine. There is a lot of yelling going on. Plus, they are keeping the bathroom in business.

My question about the family described above is this: Two or three of the kids are practically grown; why didn’t they stay home with the other kids? None of the kids were sick, they were all just there because Mama had gotten finned by a catfish and needed a tetanus shot. I guess it’s some sort of sick entertainment (no pun intended).

Everything checked out okay with our daughter so we got home for a nice quiet evening with my family. That’s it for Friday. I’m exhausted just thinking about it!

The welcome sign to Blue Springs MS.

End of Bachelorhood

2005-05-26T21:26:00.000-05:00

Tonight is the last of the solitude. I’m packing up so I can leave in the morning to be reunited with my wife and daughter. I am meeting them at my parents’ house in NE MS for the holiday weekend. My daughter will meet her great-grandparents for the first time, and along with several other strange characters I’m sure I’ll have to explain once she’s older.

So, I will not be posting for a few days since my parents are very technologically challenged and do not own a computer. Don’t worry though; I’m sure I will be able to write for weeks from the weekend’s experiences! There’s much more to come. I’m going to try to sneak the camera away for an hour or two though and capture some of the landmarks that I’m writing about.

Have a good holiday.

Subway

2005-05-26T15:02:00.000-05:00

I normally bring my lunch to work every day so I can save money, and ensure that I’m eating that right things. Today I just could not bring myself to make, let alone eat, another turkey sandwich. I went to the gym during lunch, and stopped by Subway afterwards. As predicted, Subway was busy, but I was hungry, so I waited. Once I had my Southwest Chipotle Steak and Cheese on wheat, I was ready to pay. Keep in mind that there is a long line behind me in a very small Subway. The lady swipes my debit card. I can see the display, and it reads “Communication Lost”. So, she swipes it again. After a minute or two the display reads “Dialing”, then “No Answer”. Any reasonable person would be able to figure out that the system is down or someone is using the phone line. However, I am the only one who can see the LED screen to read these important messages. So then the lady (unaware of the messages) starts asking me if I have more cards, because “your card is no good.” She keeps saying this louder and louder. I don’t want to give her another card because I know the same thing is going to happen, because the line is messed up, but then the growing line in Subway will really think I have financial problems, so I just gave her cash and left.

Scooters?

2005-05-25T21:46:00.000-05:00

I’ve abandoned the mini-series “Boys Home Alone” because I’m thinking the title is causing me to lose readers.

During the last two months, I’ve noticed something new here in the ghetto. Men are riding motorcycles that are very small. Is this some new fad that I’m just too un-cool to know about? They are tiny. The bikes look like they will collapse at any minute under the weight of these grown men who fly up and down my street. I’m not talking mo-peds here. The proportion would be correct only if midgets rode them. The funny thing is that I have never seen any kids, or midgets for that matter, riding them. If anyone knows about this, please post a comment so I can be more informed.

Not much else is going on around here. I was going to give the dog a bath, but I realized that my wife took the hair dryer to Mississippi, so a very-much-needed cleansing was not possible. He doesn’t seem to mind though, and neither do I.

I have noticed that my neighbors are having people over on their patio that is decorated with Christmas lights. All of the guests live next-door or one street over. It’s a little awkward when I have to take the dog out because our houses are so close that I feel the need to say, “Hey, it’s just me. Good to see everyone at the party to which I was not invited! Have fun!” But I’m not bitter.

Where Elvis Never Sleeps

2005-05-25T20:13:00.000-05:00

Halfway between Tupelo and Memphis is the town of Holly Springs, Mississippi. It’s a beautiful place filled with antebellum homes and lots of Southern culture. There’s also an attraction in Holly Springs that can be called nothing but bizarre. It’s Graceland Too: Where Elvis Never Sleeps.

If I might act as tour guide on this journey, I will suggest a stop before the main attraction. It’s a joint called Victor’s Pizza located right off of the square. (Note for all non-Southerners: Any town worth it’s salt has a town square where the courthouse sits in the middle.) Victor’s is housed in a basement, and has some of the best pizza you will ever eat. Order a few pitchers of beer too, you’ll need it in an hour or so, trust me.

After the meal, stroll a few blocks north to Graceland Too (G2). G2 is a 24 hours-a-day, 365 days-a-year tribute to the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. G2 is owned, operated and lived in by Paul McLeod and his son, Elvis Presley McLeod. That is the son’s legal name, but the story is part of the tour, so I won’t spoil it for you.

G2 is a white home that occupies its own block in downtown. There is a white cinderblock fence surrounding the property with plastic Christmas trees attached to the columns. Out back you can see Paul’s car, a Cadillac of course.

Once you are inside, Paul begins to explain his love for the late King. So much so that many years ago his wife gave him the ultimatum, her or the King, and he told her to have a nice life. He gleams when he announces “I haven’t looked back since!”

The first room is the Blue Christmas room; with you guessed it, a Christmas tree with all blue ornaments. “Blue Christmas” is playing in the background. The first time I went on the tour, he actually said to me, “Son step in there and twist in that light bulb so we can start the tour.” Honest to God, I wouldn’t make that up.

The next room has all gold décor. Paul uses this as his segway to discuss the number 1 hits. At this point he also shows you the gold satin Elvis suit that he is to be buried in one day. There are various other themed rooms, such as the one with his collection of TV Guides, in which he has marked every page Elvis is mentioned with a paper clip, yes, every TV Guide ever published.

Once you get to the back of Paul’s home he serenades the women with some of Elvis’s ballads. He holds your hand and gets down on one knee. One of my friends said that there was a lot of spit involved. I might add that this is also the point where I begin to think of serial killers and what a headline might read, if we were ever found. The tour is almost over now, and he begins to explain how if you pay the $5 admission price and take the tour on three different occasions, he will grant you lifetime membership, and you never have to pay again. He also tells you that you will be put on the mailing list for the big Elvis party he plans to hold one day. He then snaps a Polaroid, and that’s it.

I’ve taken the tour twice, so I guess I have just one more before my lifetime membership kicks in.

After you finish the tour, I would encourage you to go back to Victor’s for some more beer.

I tried to locate G2’s website, and apparently it is not being maintained. But here’s a link from the Holly Springs tourism site, http://www.visithollysprings.org/gracelandtoo.html, just so you will know that I’m not making this one up.

Paul McLeod - curator at Graceland Too

The Last 15 Minutes Before Bedtime

2005-05-25T09:58:00.000-05:00

My mom called last night. I asked her what she was doing. She said, oh, I’m just wiping down all of the interior doors with Clorox wipes. God love this woman! My mother has always believed that cleanliness was next to Godliness. I picked up this trait from her and I hope to pass it on to my children. My mother would take this to the extremes sometimes, and I picked this up too.

In addition to keeping an immaculate house, Mom worked a full time job and had a hot meal on the table every night. I’m amazed at her dedication.

Many nights as a child, we would hear her plea for my brother and I to “take 15 minutes” and straighten up. She believed that 15 minutes of tidying up could solve many of the world’s problems. The most important time to have a clean house was right before bedtime. She would always cite that we never knew what could happen in the night: someone could get sick or even die. We used to counter that if someone died and the neighbors came to the house at 3 a.m. (a rural folks’ tradition), that no one would be looking at the house to see if the laundry was folded. That is until we did indeed have to go to someone’s house in the night (you can imagine the trauma this inflicted; it will probably be its own post one day). Once we returned home early that morning, the conversation went something like this:

Mom: “It sure was sad. I know their family is going through a tough time now.”
Everyone else: yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone is offering his or her “so sad” comments.
Mom: “It’s a shame that they couldn’t have had those dishes in the sink put away.”

You get the idea.

Now I’m not saying that there was never a little clutter in our house. She had two sons and a husband, what could be expected? However, there were two rules that had to be enforced: (1) Never leave dirty dishes in the kitchen and (2) there is never an excuse for a dirty bathroom. In my mother’s eyes, a dirty bathroom could warrant calling Child Services or possibly a wrecking ball.

In our married life, my wife and I have probably gone to bed with a dirty kitchen only 2 times, and both indirectly involved dealings with our crying, newborn daughter. I’m glad I picked up the need for clean from my mother, even if it does require me to have a toilet brush in my hand every week. Thanks Mom.

Boys Home Alone - Day 3

2005-05-23T17:38:00.000-05:00

End of Day 3. I have to return to work tomorrow, and I’m slammed with meetings. The dog and I miss the girls terribly.

Not too much has happened today. I slept late, cut the grass and got a haircut. I went to Great Clips, where a haircut is only $13. There is no need to make an appointment, and you never get the same stylist twice, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The lady who performed my trim had a voice deeper than mine, and a mustache much more impressive than anything I could ever grow. But hey, it was cheap. I’m making some lentil soup tonight, and then hopefully will get to bed early. I get up around 5:15 a.m. on workdays, so early to bed is a must.

I’ve been blogging for a week now, and I must say I’m addicted. I realize I can’t keep up with the pace I’ve been on for the past 3 days, but will still try as much as time permits. I do have a new respect for writers. With only a week under my belt, I’ve already had writer’s block 4 times.

I’ve always wanted to write a book, I just have a hard time channeling the inspiration. I even bought The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published. I still would like to pursue this one day, but for now the blogging is enough.

Ahhhhh….the vacation has been nice.

An Important Message from Corporate America

2005-05-23T15:07:00.000-05:00

I realize that most of my readers (yeah, both of you) are removed from the life of corporate America, so I’m pasting in an email that I received today on my work account so you’ll have a better idea of the serious business taking place in corporate headquarters around the world.

Good afternoon:

On Friday, May 27, 2005, the refrigerators will be cleaned on your floor/in your area, after regular business hours. The cleaning will include the freezer part, as well as the rest of the refrigerator. Housekeeping will throw away ANYTHING that is left in the refrigerator during cleaning. Also, if you store medicine taken on a regular basis, please remove it no later than 6 PM Friday.

To assist us efficiently, please respond to this e-mail accepting or declining the scheduled cleaning on Friday evening. Also, please specify if you have more than one fridge to be cleaned; also, if you wish to include microwaves, please advise of same. Please reply no later than 2 PM tomorrow, May 23, 2005. Thank you for your assistance.

**If you're in the office today and/or tomorrow prior to the deadline, please respond either way because Housekeeping needs to post the signs on your floors no later than tomorrow evening.

Thanks!!

I’m hoping the bold, multi-colored, underlined fonts come through, but I doubt they will. I will get this message twice a day all week, perhaps even more on Thursday and Friday. This could only be more serious if the microwaves were included. This was attempted once, but a complete meltdown in communication almost occurred.

The Fish 'N' Steak House

2005-05-23T11:31:00.000-05:00

I write this next piece as homage to the Fish ‘N’ Steak House (FNS). These establishments are on every corner it seems in rural Northeast Mississippi where I grew up. You can just insert the owner’s last name before the Fish ‘N’ Steak House for a more complete title. For the 2 ½ years I lived in Jackson I never found one of these (nor did I look). I have an inkling that the description I will give will need to be modified for other rural areas, but you’ll get the idea hopefully.

Moderately priced chain restaurants are hard to come by in most places in NE MS. There’s just not enough demand. The answer to this lack in the supply chain is the FNS. Here’s what can be expected on your first visit:

The big night is Saturday. Some go on Friday. Many times these are the only two nights they are open. There is no lunch offering, and don’t even insult them by thinking they are open on Sunday. You must arrive early, sometimes even 4:00 p.m. You can probably get away with 6:00, but after that there’s going to be a wait. And don’t even think about showing up at 8:30, because the doors will be locked and the lights will be off (in the bed early for church the next day). There must be some sort of secretive FNS trade group that sets these crazy rules.

The décor is universal: brown commercial carpet (not sure if it was brown to begin with), metal folding chairs at a table with one of those vinyl red and white checked table cloths, and probably a few stuffed animals on the wall. I’m not talking about a Care Bear here; I’m referring to that red fox or deer rack that was Uncle Roy’s prize kill during last year’s hunting season. There will also be a portable salad bar where the dressing selections are Ranch, Thousand Island, Lite Ranch, Ranch, and Ranch with a ladle marked Blue Cheese—but it’s still Ranch. Somewhere near the salad bar is a tub of Lance crackers that never empties.

Once you are seated, your waitress (no, I’m not being sexist. An unspoken rule is that a man would never be hired to be wait staff, his place is in the kitchen!) will come to check on your well-being. She probably knows your family, or works with your neighbor. She might even be related. Her uniform for the evening consists of a pair of stone-washed jeans from 1988 (3 sizes too small), a colorful T-shirt with above mentioned FNS name on it, and possibly a big catfish below the name. She has bleached-blond hair, and if tonight’s tips are enough, she might get the roots done next week. She refers to everyone as “Hun.”

The food. There is a one-page menu that is stained because of its age. It never changes so most people never even consult. Your main options are Fish—2 fillets and Fish-all you can eat (both options are fried). You could get a steak or chicken breast, but this is not recommended. The waitress will begin going around the table saying “You want the fish?” For a real visualization, put 3 syllables in the word fish. With this you can have cole slaw or salad, and fries or baked potato, and hush puppies. I always choose the cole slaw.

Once the meal arrives you are in fried food heaven. The service is always top-notch. Your waitress takes care of you like you are her prized child. There’s no rushing you, and if you opted for the all-you-can-eat, she will be bringing you fried fish for hours. She is not happy until you bust!

After the meal is finished and the Rolaids have been passed, it’s time to pay and leave. You pay at the door on your way out. At my favorite FNS back home, the same lady has been taking the money for as long as I can remember. She is the tannest woman I have ever seen. She will ask how the meal was while she’s ringing up the check. Most pay cash, but they’ll probably take a check since they know everyone anyway. And don’t even think about using a debit card. As she hands you your change, she gives every member of your family a small candy cane.

I hated these places when I was growing up, because that’s where my family dined out 95% of the time. Now that they are not an option for me, I try to go once or twice a year when I’m home visiting my folks. So, if you are ever in NE MS, throw all healthy-eating rules out the window, try to decide if you want two fillets or all-you-can-eat and enjoy the best fried catfish you’ll ever taste.

Boys Home Alone - Day 2

2005-05-23T00:02:00.000-05:00

Day two has passed with my two best gals gone from home. The dog and I are surviving, but things are starting to get lonely around here. I think it’s going to be a long week.

I did take advantage of my wife’s absence to cook shrimp tonight. She’s allergic to shellfish, so we both practically gave up this delicacy when we found out. However, tonight the shrimp were back in the kitchen in a dish called Shrimp Sorrento. It’s a vodka crème sauce that I actually had to flame. Very fun.

I finished Phantom of the Opera (the movie). It was good, but as I predicted, nothing to compare with the musical on stage. Something is just lost when that huge chandelier does not come crashing down just feet above your head. I’ve seen the musical twice, so watching the movie was a good way to pick up some details that I missed thanks to DVD technology. Good adaptation overall. I’m thrilled that Hollywood is taking musicals and delivering them to a wider audience. And, I even thought that Chicago the movie was better than Chicago the musical.

The only other highlight of the day was that I finally showered around 4:00, and went to Your Dekalb Farmers’ Market (http://www.dekalbfarmersmarket.com/). I love the Farmers’ Market. They carry every fruit and vegetable grown in the world. There is also an excellent selection of seafood, cheese and wine. It’s a chef’s dream come true.

On a sadder note, my Mom called tonight. Apparently their Cocker Spaniel has passed away. She was 13 or 14 years old, so she was very much a part of my life when I was still at home. It’s sad, and a good dog will be missed. Coincidentally, she shares her name with that of my newborn daughter. It’s a shame they missed meeting each other by 5 days.

And. . . . . Tomorrow is a vacation day for me, so no getting up early.

Mens' Mental Health

2005-05-22T10:43:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I got my June issue of Men’s Health magazine. I usually can’t wait, and if I happen to be traveling or near a newsstand, I’ll buy it early. One of my buddies says that I should stop reading it because a great deal of their advice conflicts from one month to the next. What he says is true in some cases, but usually only in the areas like saving your prostate, etc.

The June issue did not let me down. In 30 minutes I learned how to make my arms bigger, my stomach flatter and how to grill a salmon fillet with spinach. True, I do not look like the guys who are hired to be on the cover, and I never will, but it’s very inspirational at the least. I will usually hit the gym a few extra times in the days after MH’s arrival, so I guess it’s good for something.

I do have one complaint though. It’s about the style section. I’ve been an avid reader of MH for years, and until recently, I’ve never even looked at the style section, because even during my single days, I could not afford the must have $1750 Armani blue blazer. It seems that in recent months, perhaps my way of thinking has caught on, because there is now a subsection called “Affordable Style”. It seems they still missed the mark though.

“Affordable Style”: $275 Freedom is Natural Nirvana jeans; $600 Coach duffel bag (no-it’s not even leather, just canvas); $510 Salvatore Ferragamo shoes (casual—pair them with the affordable $275 jeans); and $165 Thomas Pink shirt.

Keep in mind that the purpose of this three-page spread is to help me, the average joe, achieve affordable ways to dress casually with denim.

I do like dressing nice, and trendy while I’m still young enough to get away with it. And I do have some very nice dress clothes. But, here’s my approach to the affordable style: $20 J.Crew jeans that my wife bought on clearance for my Christmas present; $8 Old Navy t-shirt; $65 New Balance sneakers that will soon be two years old if the soles do not fall off first. Now, take the money saved from my version and do extravagant things like: buy groceries, pay mortgage payment and buy an extra pack of diapers—because if you are going to splurge for a big name brand, skip the Hugo Boss underwear and buy some Pampers, you’ll be much happier!

Boys Home Alone

2005-05-21T23:24:00.000-05:00

I’m contemplating my free time. That’s what I have this week. The wife and baby have journeyed back to Mississippi for a week with her parents. I got a pardon because someone has to stay here and pay the mortgage. We’ll meet back up for a few days at my parents’ next weekend. So, it’s just the dog and me. He’s good company though.

I am somewhat worried about my wife though. She’s been there for about six hours, and it seems they’ve already brought out the “1970s Big Book of Childraising” to point out how pointless the parenting methods we are experimenting with are. She’ll have six days of this, only to move to my Mother’s subtle comparisons of she and my sister-in-law, who has a 2-½ year old. Half of her trip will be spent calling me to vent; free mobile-to-mobile minutes were made for this! It should be very interesting to say the least. I’m sure it will take three or four days once they are back home for the baby to get back on schedule, so in the end we will all suffer.

Oh how times have changed. Was it so long ago that I would have used such an opportunity of freedom to go out to a bar or something? I’m so far removed from such things that I wouldn’t even know where to start. Instead I am happy with a bag full of movies from Blockbuster and a box of Goobers.

Tonight’s selection was “Meet the Fockers” and tomorrow will be “Phantom of the Opera.” I can’t imagine that Phantom is going to be anything other than a disappointment to anyone who’s seen the musical, but I’ll give it a try.

“Meet the Fockers” was very funny, and I think anyone who is married can relate to the mixing of parents from two separate worlds. I know I could.

So, my first night of bachelorhood has been great, filled with movies, my dog curled up beside me, no listening for a baby monitor, and a bottle of Clos du Bois, my favorite!

School's Out

2005-05-21T17:02:00.000-05:00

Yesterday marked the last day of school for most in the metro Atlanta area. Kids will be screaming to celebrate, parents will be trying to keep them occupied, and I will be on watch from this point until August.

For those of you who do not live here, let me cover one thing to save clarifying later. Living spaces in this town are described by either of two labels: Inside-The-Perimeter (ITP) or Outside-The-Perimeter (OTP). Of course, there are many, many sub levels of each, but not necessary for this post. The Perimeter is I-285, the circle that separates the inner from the outer. Those of us living ITP do not have to deal with traffic, are close to everything and might get lucky and make a fortune on our house one day if we decide to sell—after all ITP cannot be expanded. Those who chose to live OTP have traffic nightmares, but are compensated by nice neighborhoods, schools, etc.

I live in on the East Side, just outside the city limits of both Atlanta and Decatur. I am not in a “subdivision” or formalized neighborhood, as being ITP makes this almost impossible. However, I do live in a new house built in the same style as homes of the 1930’s and 1940’s. (My house is actually called a “Charleston”.) There are about 25 of these new houses interspersed in a 6 block area. My house is also 1-½ blocks from a Section 8 Housing Project and many older homes where the homeowners wised up and are holding on for value. There are actually many low-income apartment complexes near my home. Regardless, such a mix fosters its share of riff-raff and troublemakers. In future posts I may refer to my neighborhood as the ghetto.

Now back to school being out. If this year mimics the last one, I will not need a calendar to tell me that the last bell has rung. It will be marked within a few days by noise, general loitering and theft. Last year, everyone I know had a lawnmower stolen, and if that was the extent, one was considered lucky. We beefed up security at our homes, and fortified crawl spaces or garages—wherever the equipment was stored. My own set-up resembles Fort Knox, of which I am proud. However, you can imagine what a pain in the ass it is when I actually have to get to the equipment!

As far as I know, I still hold the best tale from last year’s activity when one night I chased someone down for my trash can. It was about 10:00, and I had put the trash out about an hour before. I just happened to look out the window and see a man taking my trash can. He emptied its contents and started to leave with it on foot. I called 911, only to realize that he would be long gone by the time someone arrived. So, without using the best judgment, I hopped in my wife’s Volkswagen, and chased him down. I finally found him, threw the car in park and jumped out to risk my life for my $14 can (it had wheels and even matched my house, you can imagine my attachment!). I think he might have been homeless, and I didn’t see a weapon, and we ended up fighting with words anyway. I wasn’t sure that I was capable of the obscenities that came out of my mouth that night. I guess you pick things up living in the ghetto. Anyway, as he was holding my can, he was still claiming his innocence. He ran once I pulled out a cell phone. He must have thought that the police were just on stand-by and watching with their SWAT gear ready. I finally got the can loaded in the Volkswagen and went home. The police called 30 minutes later to ask if I would like an officer to stop by.

Many of the problems we had last summer weren’t even caused by school-aged children, but it seems their summer restlessness is contagious. Just as all of the problems started when school let out, they seemed to end when it started back. I can’t imagine what’s in store for this year.

As a side note, I should add that the lovely trash can, for which I risked my life, was prohibited by the county just two months ago due to a size issue, so now they sit lonely outside of my house, but at least they still match!

Is Hearing Perceiving?

2005-05-20T07:43:00.000-05:00

A few days ago two of my co-workers and I were sneaking out of the office for our 2:00 Starbucks break when the conversation turned to Southern accents. I hate this conversation. I was so thrown off by it that I almost forgot to duck when upper management came around the corner at the coffee shop! My co-workers are from Texas and Pennsylvania, so for this post we’ll call them Tex and Penn (such originality; it’s amazing that I still have a day job!)

I was astonished when these two made reference to my STRONG Southern accent. I was not offended because it was an insightful conversation, but I still must admit that I walked away with a childish frown.

Why would I care? First of all, regardless of motive, I have worked for years trying to tame the beast. Atlanta is an eclectic mix, and the mix diminishes the standout quality of anyone’s accent. A lot of people that I am around, both with work and at home, are like me: People fleeing small-town (dare I say hick-town?) complexes who crave fresh ways of thinking. As part of my flight, I am also trying to leave the accent. My own theory is that most of my peers are trying to change this about themselves, or at least something, to improve the dissociation with the above-mentioned small town.

My second reasoning is that Southerners are perceived to be less intelligent. Or at least, so I have always thought. After talking to Tex and Penn I started to realize that perhaps the only people stereotyping Southern accents are Southerners, or maybe I’m the only one doing it.

If you are not from the South, you hear just a distinct accent unlike any other in the country. If you are from South (or have been a transport for many years), you can hear many varying shades. Most Southerners can easily pinpoint dialects such as: Deep South—Bible Belt, non-city; Deep South Refined—I like to picture old ladies dressed up just because its Tuesday, sitting on a wandering front porch sipping gin and tonics while discussing their Azaleas; Northern South—Virginia, etc.; Cajun—needs no explanation; Florida: Technically not the South, but included for geographic purposes.

Back to the coffee break: Tex did not realize that her Texas accent was that strong, but she was delighted when Penn and I mentioned it. She’s very proud of her accent, and anything that identifies her with home state. We continued discussing accents, and after a few minutes I finally let my guard down again. I started to realize that perhaps my own defensiveness to the accent, or anything that ties me to my past is more of a stumbling block than I thought. Perhaps I should work on my own insecurities rather than my diction.

Okay, if anyone at all is reading this, I would love for you to weigh in on this. I’m curious to hear what others think. Maybe it’s just a plea for some comments.

PS, if you notice this post time, I did not work on this while I was at work, I just posted it here. Who am I kidding? I don’t even believe that myself! That’s it for this one; I’m sneaking off to Starbucks to try to find Tex and Penn.

Can Class Reunion invitations be sent to prison?

2005-05-17T21:13:00.000-05:00

The summer of 2005 will mark the 10th year that I have been out of high school. I would use the term graduation loosely considering I’m fairly certain that I achieved this milestone with a few illiterates (More on the public education system in rural Mississippi later when I detail how I finished high school with only having to read 3 books in 4 years!).

To celebrate the occasion, several of my classmates and I figure we should celebrate with the traditional class reunion. I cannot be sure of the turnout, but I can already envision what’s going to happen. It will be an uncomfortable fiasco at best. The class reunion is extraordinary if you think about it. What other event combines a roomful of people that have not seen each other in 10 years; people that have gone several different ways in life, and ironically weren’t even that great of friends to begin with?

I’ll set the scene: A nice enough restaurant in a neighboring town. There will be three groups of people, probably congregating in three different areas. Group 1: The classmates who are fairly happy with their life and are truly glad to see everyone else. They seem genuinely interested in the lives of their former acquaintances and just want the evening to be a success. Group 2: This is the group filled with people who probably hate their lives and think that everyone else is trying to show them up. They will carry on conversations with members from the other groups, but are relieved to find others like them to share in the cynicism. Group 3: The outsiders. This group is a newly formed one from high school, and its membership is not predictable. Most of these classmates have gone on to great adventures either in education, vocation and/or living locale. Members of this group will have a hard time believing that they spent 12 years (Ours was not a true high school, but rather a K-12 set up) with the others.

We lived in a “dry” county. For those of you not from the rural South, this refers to a county where the sale or possession of alcohol is prohibited, and generally perceived to be straight from the Devil. This condition contributes to moving the reunion to a neighboring town where adult beverages are legal. I say that to say this, there will be someone who has too much. I will venture to say that this person (these people) will be from either Groups 2 or 3. This is sure to add to the excitement of the evening.

In addition to the sobriety issues, here’s what else will be going on: The 2’s will be bitching about how the 3’s picked an expensive restaurant, and also how the 3’s are just showing off. The 3’s will indeed be working hard to keep the 1’s attention while not coming across as bragging too much. The 1’s are trying to talk to the 2’s because in the end they are just trying to keep the peace and they want everyone to have a good time. In addition, some of the 1’s will probably be whispering about the evils of alcohol and how the 2’s and 3’s should be ashamed of themselves. If you haven’t caught on the general theme there, all groups have nothing in common.

My scenario above will only happen if we ever send out the letters announcing the reunion. We are having great difficulty. Some people have fallen off the Earth it seems. When we call their parents some tell us that they are not interested as if we are selling the reunion in 3 easy payments of $19.95. One mother told me that her son had married a tall blond who was a size 2. No, we are not doing a standard spousal evaluation, but rather asking for a mailing address, but the justification begins anyway!

However, the most surprising of all is the number of our former classmates who are guests of the state in the penitentiary. We have reports so far that 3 of our 40-ish number are either there or are on their way. Watch out Group 2, you’re starting the evening off short in the numbers already. Now the nagging question is whether it is appropriate to send their letter to the prison, or is it safe to assume that they will not be able to make it?

The Master of None's Intro

2005-05-17T07:15:00.000-05:00

This will be my first attempt at “blogging”. A friend of mine got me hooked several weeks ago, and now the first thing I do once I boot up is check her blog to see what’s new. If she permits, I’ll link her site, given it’s so entertaining and well written. (She gave permission, check her out at http://www.husbandeaters.blogspot.com/). I’ve been trying to get the courage to create my own for a while now, and here’s the result of my effort. Now that I’ve got the customary, boring “my first time” disclaimer taken care of, I’ll move on.

I selected the title “Master of None” when trying to figure out a phrase that described my life. Of course that’s short for “Jack of all trades, master of none.” This description will be explored in-depth as I post more, but basically I dabble so excessively, that’s it is impossible to be a master of anything. I think I lose my focus when I try to be Great Husband and Father, Corporate Ladder-Climbing Businessman, Renaissance Man (I’ll lump cooking, music, gardening, reading here), etc. all at once. If you’ve ever tried to label your life with a phrase, you’ll probably sympathize with my struggle.

This blog will also be my vehicle to share funny stories from my past and present (and guestimates about the future!). I’ll give my opinion on some current events and people, but mainly I’ll just tell about me. Actually I’ll probably intertwine those past stories to try to psychoanalyze why at times I am so screwed up today.

Here’s a little bit about myself. I’m 28, married to a terrific gal, and have a 6 week-old baby daughter and a dog. I live in Atlanta and work downtown for a large company. (No, I’m not giving any details yet as I’m not sure how anonymous this will be. Currently I’m thinking it will be on the down-low, but I’m sure after I haven’t received a single comment in weeks, I’ll send the address to everyone I know!).

My wife and I both hail from Mississippi. She’s from Jackson (largest city and state capital), and I’m from a small little postal address near Tupelo (birth place of Elvis). I add the Elvis comment because most people have never heard of Tupelo, and usually most people can at least relate to Elvis. Actually most people would not even know that Jackson is the capital of Mississippi had the WorldCom scandal not erupted there.

We’ve been in Atlanta for 2 ½ years. I wanted to move to the North, but my wife wanted to stay in the South, thus Atlanta was the compromise, and I got my big city. Though after living here for a while, I realize that Atlanta has nothing to do with the South as most Southerners know it other than geographic location and sweetened iced tea.

I think I was on a quest to leave Mississippi from an early age. Right out of grad school, I started working in Jackson for a firm with locations all over the world. I figured I could put in a few years, and then I would let them move me away . . . .to anywhere. This large firm decided that Jackson just wasn’t happening with them, so they closed the office, and I was stuck. This was a month before I was to get married. All of this meant that my exodus was going to take a lot more effort on my part, not to mention that I would have to finance it and my original timeline was shot to hell. I never let go of the vision though, and waited until the moment was right to spring it on my wife. Actually I had already sprung the idea several times before only to be turned down, but she gave in eventually.

Okay, after working on this first post for a few days, I’m not very happy with the outcome. I think I’ve even bored myself! I’ve convinced myself though that the “introductory” has to be boring, and that the future installments will be much better. Now I’m just hoping to find the little room where all of my good ideas go to hide since they leave me before I can get to a computer!