House for sale

Yeah, so we're moving.

The story is long and complex and is so boring that you would want to claw your own eyes out if I put it on this page. But it all boils down to this: we have the opportunity to own the house that Wife grew up in. A beautiful, old home with a lot of memories.

But we still have to sell this place. And based on what I know about the process of listing and showing a house, I can say with a great deal of confidence that they will have to carry my cold, lifeless 140 year-old body out of the new house. This process buh-lows.

For two weeks now, our phone has been blowing up (to use the vernacular of our urban youth) with calls from our realtor and various home-related contractors. The guy fixing the landscape lighting. The guy that did the pressure washing. The guys that came to give us a price on removing the old oil furnace.

Wife has had the unenviable task of coordinating all the home-selling activity since I'm at the office all day. And then there's those two kids that live here. We can't seem to find their "Pause" buttons, so they still need the same love and attention they would if we weren't selling this house.

Needless to say, my old lady's plate is pretty full. But she's handling it with a level of grace and class that would be beyond my reach. If this were all in my lap, I would have run away to live in a cave by now.

I guess the biggest challenge we're facing is this: Next week the realtor will start showing the house. How do we juggle the need of people to come see our house with our own need to cook meals, play with toys and have naptime? In other words, what advice can you give us on how to still live our life in this house while we try to sell it?

Surely some of you have done this before. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thursday round-up

There's a lot going on around here. I'll tell you about it soon.

For now, here's some good stuff from this week:

Each Thursday, new Creed Thoughts are posted. I love this stuff.

I stumbled across a blog with a list of Surefire Ways To Get Yourself Fired. It took me back to the dawn of the information age, when email was used to pass around goofy lists like this. Anyhow, some of these are pretty funny.

That's it for now. Be good.

Finding out too late

I've had two interesting experiences with restaurants in as many weeks.

And please understand that the word "interesting" is relative.

The first experience was this: I stopped into get dinner for myself at a burger chain. Which burger chain is not important. But if you must know, the name rhymes with Mendy's.

The fact that there were only two other people in this Mendy's at 5:45 p.m. on a Thursday should have been a clue. I ordered my food and paid. As I was waiting for them to bring my dinner to the counter, I noticed the health inspection.

87.

The food was already purchased. All I could do was take it to my table and eat it, knowing that a few things were amiss sanitation-wise in the kitchen.

Fast forward to the second event: I took a client to an Italian buffet for lunch yesterday.

My clue at this place should have been that it was a buffet. But this client is a little old lady, and we all know how much old people love buffets.

(Speaking of buffets, last year I was at my former company's home office for meetings. One night, one of the big dog executives hosted dinner for us at his house. He's this hard-core blue blood guy and kept calling the buffet a boo-fay, which sounded really pompous. Of course, if I had this guy's house and paycheck, I'd probably call it a boo-fay too.)

Anyhow, little old lady and I ate lunch and while I was paying I noticed the health inspection.

87.

Now, I thought those health inspections were kinda like the SAT - you get a 90 just for turning the lights on. So just how foul does your kitchen need to be for them to dock you three points?

All of that explanation is to get you to this question: Would you rather see the 87 before you eat the meal or would you rather see the 87 after you eat the meal?

I've had it both ways in the past two weeks. I'm not sure I like either way.

My generation

One of the blogs I like to read is Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk.

On Monday she posted a short quiz to determine which generation you fit in. You should go read the full story here, but here's the quiz:

Add up your points to figure out what generation you’re really a part of:

Do you have your own web page? (1 point)

Have you made a web page for someone else? (2 points)

Do you IM your friends? (1 point)

Do you text your friends? (2 points)

Do you watch videos on YouTube? (1 point)

Do you remix video files from the Internet? (2 points)

Have you paid for and downloaded music from the Internet? (1 point)

Do you know where to download free (illegal) music from the Internet? (2 points)

Do you blog for professional reasons? (1 point)

Do you blog as a way to keep an online diary? (2 points)

Have you visited MySpace at least five times? (1 point)

Do you communicate with friends on Facebook? (2 points)

Do you use email to communicate with your parents? (1 point)

Did you text to communicate with your parents? (2 points)

Do you take photos with your phone? (1 point)

Do you share your photos from your phone with your friends? (2 points)

0-1 point - Baby Boomer

2-6 points - Generation Jones

6- 12 points - Generation X

12 or over - Generation Y

According to this quiz, I'm part of Generation X. How do you stack up?

The 7:30 Scare

I get dressed during the 7:00 - 7:30 a.m. half hour. We typically have the Today show on as background noise.

I say "background noise" because it would be silly to call it "news."

I always like watching that first half hour because that's when they tease a segment that I call the 7:30 Scare.

The 7:30 Scare is a story, usually poorly disguised as some sort of consumer safety piece, that serves no other purpose than to scare you about something you can't control.

They've done all sorts of stories. I've seen them stage a break-in at someone's house. They've run a blacklight over airplane seats to show us how many people have joined the mile-high club in your seat.

Last week they had the mother of all 7:30 Scare stories. The intro was so good I had to stop what I was doing to write it down. Here it is:

Meredith Viera: You might think you're safe when you're going to bed, but each year hundreds of people die from mattress fires.

Each year. Hundreds of people die. From mattress fires.

The story was about how some government agency has issued a new fire prevention standard for mattresses because as many as 275 people die each year as a result of mattress fires.

Mattress fires.

Any fire-related death is a tragedy. It's a horrible, horrible way to die.

But when you look at the numbers, that's roughly 300 people in a nation of 300,000,000.

Statistically speaking, I'd bet that more people die each year from complications of eating their own poop. But you don't hear about that on the Today show.

Anyhow, it's always fun to see what the 7:30 Scare is going to be. If you can remember a good one you've seen lately, leave a Comment.

Five things

My Wife tagged me for this meme. Here goes:

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I had just returned home from spending a semester in Washington studying at American University. While I was there, I worked as an intern in the Senate. That was back before "Washington intern" was a bad label.

What were you doing one year ago?
Last year I chaired a regional committee of business leaders and United Way folks that organized 50 service projects carried out in three cities over a five day period involving more than 1,000 volunteers.

This year I'm playing Wii. In my den. Alone.

I like to mix it up.

Five snacks you enjoy:
Goldfish
Little pretzels
Wasabi-covered peas
Chips and salsa
Jalapeno-flavored potato chips

Five songs you know all the words to:
Soul Meets Body - Death Cab for Cutie
When Did You Fall - Chris Rice
Disturbance at the Heron House - R.E.M.
Nothing Without You - Bebo Norman
One Man Wrecking Machine - Guster

Five things you'd do if you had $1,000,000:
Ask for another $1,000,000
Start a business
Re-do the kitchen
Give some away
Fund college plans for the kids

Five bad habits:
$1 double cheeseburger from McDonald's
Lack of exercise
Mumbling
Going too long between haircuts
Not folding clothes before I stuff them in a drawer

Five things I like doing:
Reading to my children
Playing golf
Spending time with my wife
Reading blogs
Cooking

Five things I'd never wear again:
That's tough to say. My entire life has been polo shirts and khaki pants or shorts. I will probably continue to wear this stuff for many years into the future.

Five of my favorite toys:
iPod
Wii
This MacBook
Tivo
Satellite radio

There you have it. If you want to participate, consider yourself tagged. Just let me know in the Comments so I can come read your list!

Mic'd up at dinner

One of the Comments on my Summer Jobs post from yesterday reminded me of another good story. As you'll see, it's ironic that a guy named Mike would remind me of this story.

Wife and I went to a small, private college. When we were there, the school's dining hall was the only facility (other than the great outdoors) large enough to accommodate large groups of people for meals.

The college was located in a very small town, so the dining hall served almost like a civic center. If the Rotary club or some other group needed to have a large dinner, our cafeteria was the place.

As such, many times when we arrived for dinner, the place would already be set up. Which means there might be a little daisy in a glass vase on the table and the brand-name Sweet-N-Low would be on the table instead of the generic stuff they gave the students.

And it also means they had a stage or head table set up with a wireless microphone hooked into the PA system. So, any time we walked in and saw the wireless mic, someone from our group would be dispatched to go steal the microphone and bring it back to the table.

Once the microphone was safely in our hands, we'd flip it on and announce people as they entered the cafeteria, calling their name as if we were announcing the lineup at the World Series.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Joooohnnnnyyyyy Meeeyyyyyeeeerrrrrrsssss!"

Naturally, every head in the place would turn to look at the person walking in. And no one in the room of 300 or so had any idea where it was coming from.

Good clean fun. And no food court employees were harmed in the making of this story, which makes me feel a little better.

Summer jobs, part one

There's a whole new crew of folks at Blockbuster.

A 14 year old kid was swinging a huge, gas-powered hedge trimmer in our yard yesterday.

And customer service at almost every business in town has gone to hell.

It must be summer job season! To mark the occasion, I thought I'd share a story or two with you about some memorable summer jobs I've had. Here goes.

The summer after my freshman year of college, a friend got me a job at a sporting goods store in the mall.

The store I went to work for was an underperformer and was closing at the end of the summer. Consequently, my role was essentially to just be a live body in the store to work a cash register during the 10-week long liquidation sale.

About a week into the sale, all the good merchandise had been bought, so we were left with clothes, shoes, fishing equipment and golf stuff that wouldn't sell. We did our best to keep the place looking nice, but the type of customer that comes in looking for 50% off a pair of mismatched shoes isn't exactly concerned with atmosphere.

By about the fifth week, customer traffic had virtually ceased. We worked long days and got very, very bored. Once we had exhausted all the ways to entertain ourselves inside the store, we had to look outward.

And when we looked outward, we found the food court.

There were two Asian places in the food court: Manchu Wok and Sakkio Japan.

I did what any idiot 18 year-old kid would have done in the pre-caller id days and picked up the phone to prank call them. Our store was located at the entrance to the food court, so we could watch the response to our phone calls.

I called Sakkio Japan and put on a horrible Chinese accent and talked a lot of smack to the guy who answered the phone. I told him I worked at Manchu Wok, that his food was making people in the food court sick, and that we should meet in the dark parking lot after work to settle things.

I remember telling him over and over, "Your chicken suck!"

Once he'd had enough of me, I called Manchu Wok and told the guy I was calling from Sakkio Japan. I gave him the same spiel I gave the other guy and tried to get an appointment for a Japan vs. China parking lot rumble.

While I was talking to the man, I was banging some metal display rods together to simulate the sound those guys make when they chop stuff on their grills.

"You hear that?" I asked him. "I put your face on grill."

To that, he countered, "Oh yeah? You come over here. I put your a$s on grill!"

I couldn't contain my laughter and broke character at that point and hung up the phone. That night, we took our time in the parking lot to see if the two restaurants were going to battle it out.

They didn't. Oh well.

The afternoon we spent prank calling fellow mall tenants was the climax of our misbehavior. The rest of the summer we put in our time and tried to clean up after the folks who would come in to get 80% off a shoebox that contained only one shoe.

I made a pretty good chunk of change that summer for a college student. And I blew every bit of it before the summer was over. I hadn't yet introduced myself to the idea of spending less than I made.

Looking back, I'm not exactly proud of the prank calling we did. I know that it was wrong to make targets out of those particular folks. But like a wise man once said, when I was young and stupid, I acted young and stupid. I can't change it now.

But every so often when I'm unloading the dishwasher, I'll grab a handful of silverware and bang it together and tell Wife, "You hear that? I put your a$s on grill!"

And we laugh.

Somebody's watching me

I think Son must have a monitor on me. I told you on Sunday how he woke up right as I was typing about what a great nap he was taking.

Last night he drove me out of my own bed and made me sleep on the couch. Here's how it went down:

Cough.

Cough. Cough.

Cough. Cough. Cough.

Cough.

That's what the late hours of Monday night and early hours of Tuesday morning sounded like at our house.

Son's cold slid down into his chest right around the time I fell asleep last night. His monitor broadcast every hack into our bedroom.

I did my best to do what any good father would do: cover my head with my pillow and block out the noise. But that little bugger has some pretty good pipes on him, so I tossed around in the bed for a while I tried to figure out what to do about him.

He's just 20 months old, so there's nothing you can give a kid that age to help suppress the cough. The humidifier was already running in there, so there's not much else I could do for him short of doing something crazy like cuddling and rocking him.

Love and comfort. Like that's going to help.

I hauled myself out of bed and turned down the monitor so that Wife could sleep. I parked myself on the couch, checked some emails and fired up the Tivo to find something to knock me out.

I watched TV for an hour or so and never did get sleepy. Finally I turned off the TV, made sure the volume was up on the baby monitor next to the couch, and tried to go to sleep there in the den.

From the moment I got up out of my bed, Son didn't cough again for the rest of the night. And you know if I had slipped back into my own bed, the coughing fits would have magically started up again.

I just have to figure out how he knows this stuff. It must just be kid's intuition - the same sixth sense that makes babies want to do gymnastics when they're nasty dirty and you've just pulled the last wipe out of the box.

My sweet daughter thinks she's a rabbit

In the years since our children were born, they have been through a variety of nicknames.

While he was in utero, we referred to Son as Deuce, since he was our second child. Once he arrived, the nickname Brother seemed to stick. He also goes by Little Man, Buddy and BuddyBoo. I'm sure he has an actual, given name but I'll be darned if I can remember what it is.

(Wife is reading over my shoulder and just reminded me that Son is named after me. That sounds vaguely familiar, but I'm still going to pull the birth certificate to verify.)

Daughter started out as Peanut. Peanut became Pea-nutty and eventually devolved into just Nutty.

There was a time a couple years ago when you could walk through our house and hear something like, "Will you check on Nutty? I think she needs a diaper."

Eventually, Daughter began to pick her own nicknames. Actually, she picked out more than nicknames. She has picked out entire personae.

(I'm assuming that the word "personae" is the plural if "persona." If so, yea for me. If not, let the record reflect that I coined that phrase here. Remind me to email the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office when I get done with this post.)

For instance, when she decided she was no longer Daughter, she became Baby Bear. If you called her by her given name, she would say, "No. Baby Bear."

If you tried to pay her a compliment like, "You're such a sweet little girl," she would chime in with, "No. Bear."

After she was Baby Bear, she assumed the identity of Mr. Fix-It from the Richard Scarry books. So unless I wanted an earful, I had to address my tiny 25-lb. two year old daughter as Mr. Fix-It.

As goofy as I thought that was, I had no idea how good I had it. The next name she assumed was Tyrone, after the moose on The Backyardigans.

That one was a little awkward, particularly in public. We had a very nice waitress at a Bob Evans one Saturday morning who took the time to chat up the kids. She didn't know quite what to say when, in response to her "And what's your name?" our sweet little girl came back with "Tyrone."

A moment later, our kind waitress was truly speechless when, after telling us what "a cute little girl" we had, Daughter stopped her with, "Not a girl. A moose."

Where do you begin to try to explain that?

Fortunately, Tyrone was a quickly-moving phase, replaced by Sugar. Sugar is the neighbor's cat. Sugar is a name you might more closely associate with smocked dresses and hair bows than Tyrone.

Lately, she's been Runaway Bunny. She took the name from the classic children's book by Margaret Wise Brown, and she is totally committed to the identity.

If you tell her it's time to brush hair, she'll fire back, "Not hair. Fur." And before we go to the dinner table, we wash paws instead of hands.

When she sees a picture of a rabbit in a book, she says, "There's me!"

It's absolutely fascinating how she immerses herself in her chosen persona. It makes me think she's either freaky smart or completely insane. Only time will tell, but my money is on smart.

I'm just hoping that she sticks with Runaway Bunny. I don't need a prissy little Miss Spider or Meschach, Shadrach or Abednego running around this place.

Happy Father's Day...LIVE!

How about a little real-time blogging to rock this Father's Day?

5:48 a.m.
I'm up. Turn off the monitor in our bedroom so Wife can get in a few extra winks. Brush teeth, etc. Turn off burglar alarm. Open front door to fetch newspaper. Newspaper not here yet.

Make coffee in the world's greatest coffee maker. Grab the new MacBook. Check Sitemeter. Three visits so far today. Check email for blog comments. One new comment. A very nice comment from Karen. Thanks Karen!

Turn on TV and watch an episode of Cops that Tivo grabbed for us last night. Yes, Tivo grabs Cops for us even though we don't ask it to. That's why I love Tivo.

6:50 a.m.
Take computer back to desk to put it down and do something real with my life. Dream up real-time blogging idea for today.

6:58 a.m.
I can hear on the monitor in the den that Son in starting to stir. A few minutes ago I heard the newspaper thump against the front door. Newspaper or Son?

Do I get Son up? Or do I let him hang out for a few minutes while I read the newspaper?

In my head, I'm hearing Dennis Hopper in the cinematic classic Speed asking Keanu Reeves, "What do you do? What DO YOU DO?"

7:05 a.m.
Swear to myself I'll never type the words "Keanu Reeves" into my blog again.

7:47 a.m.
Wife is up and we've had coffee and read the paper.

I hit the tennis court to get a match in before it gets too hot.

By "hit the tennis court" I mean: turn on the Wii that Wife got me for Father's Day.

By "before it gets too hot" I mean: before the kids get up.

On the court, I pummel Jackie and Pierre 3-2. I realize that 3-2 doesn't sound all that lopsided, but I can assure you they gave me no trouble. My Wii tennis ranking is now 868, which I think is decent considering I've only been playing for a week.

7:57 a.m.
Just took two Sudafed. Daughter has been in day camp this week and brought home SARS or bird flu or something from one of the other kids. Our whole house has been sniffling and coughing this weekend.

We're almost out of Sudafed, which means I'll have to go back and get more today. If they'll sell it to me. I had to give my name, rank and serial number at the pharmacy counter to buy the first portion on Friday. Thank you, meth addicts.

8:25 a.m.
Watching the DVD that came with the Little People parking garage we bought for the kiddos. If you've never had the pleasure, they sometimes throw in a DVD showing clayamation Little People doing different things.

Having trouble following the plot. Just got a little freaked out when the character Eddie said, "I see dead people. All the time."

Wife is cooking Father's Day pancakes, or "p-cakes" as Daughter used to call them.

Kids are up, and Wife, Daughter and Son had very sweet Father's Day cards for me. I am a very blessed man.

9:27 a.m.
My belly is full of pancakes and I've had a shower. That pretty much takes care of my To Do list for the day.

1:53 p.m.
Man, things got really busy for a while there.

Son and I took a trip to CVS for another box of Sudafed. And although I know I've already said it today: THANK YOU, METH ADDICTS.

They refused to sell me Sudafed because I purchased some in the same store on Friday. Apparently it's beyond the realm of pharmaceutical possibility for two people to consume 24 pills in a 48 hour period.

I probably should give the lady at the pharmacy the benefit of the doubt. I probably wouldn't have sold any pills to me, either. I haven't shaved since Friday morning so I've got a pretty good scum-stache going on my upper lip.

We loaded back up in the minivan and rolled across the street to Walgreens, where I was allowed to get my Sudafed. The dude at the pharmacy looked at me like I was an absolute criminal, but what do I care? I got my fix.

When we got home, we headed out to the back patio for some outdoor playtime. The kids were getting a little batty, so we figured some time in the sun would wear them down a little bit before nap time.

Wife made a pitcher of sweet tea, and we sat in the shade and sipped tea while Daughter made Bug Salad in her snack bowl. I didn't catch the whole recipe for Bug Salad, but I was able to identify moss, sticks, weeds and sand. When the Bug Salad was made to her satisfaction, Daughter carried it over and told me, "Here. I even did the finishing touches."

Now the boy is in bed and Daughter is not too far behind her. I've made the executive decision that the lawn will not be mowed today. A man this hopped up on Sudafed has no business being out in this heat.

2:42 p.m.
I fired up the Wii for another quick game of tennis in between a few chores. I must have jinxed myself by blogging about my game this morning, because Rachel and Sakura just made luncheon meat out of me in straight games, 3-0.

I may have the INS look into Sakura's immigration status. I'm not sold on her claim that she's here legally.

4:38 p.m.
I have completely given up on doing anything productive today. After the spanking Rachel and Sakura delivered in my last Wii Tennis match, I got back out there and played two more matches with mixed results.

I'm sure there's nothing that commands the Wife's respect and admiration more than a grown man standing in his own den swinging a remote control around while two cartoons play tennis on the TV.

4:44 p.m.
I'm watching the U.S. Open and wondering how I would look in a shirt like the one Tiger is wearing today.

My guess?

Creepy. Or sick.

Or creepy and sick.

4:48 p.m.
Son is still asleep. If there's a silver lining to all of us having whooping cough or polio or whatever this funk is, it's that the little man takes awesome naps.

4:49 p.m.
Apparently Son can hear the keystrokes on this computer from his room on the other side of the house. He just woke up.

8:33 p.m.
Back from my Mom and Dad's, where we celebrated Father's Day with Swiss steak, mashed potatoes, collard greens and green beans. And a big ol' peach cobbler.

Last Comic Standing is coming on in a few minutes, so we're going to give that a try tonight. I have sort of a love-hate thing with Last Comic. On the one hand, I like watching stand-up comedy. On the other hand, the competitive element of the show is just over-the-top contrived.

And the producers pick contestants more on their ridiculousness than on how funny they are.

I've now wasted five minutes blogging about how I'm going to waste a different hour of my life.

10:48 p.m.
Going to bed. Wife and I fell asleep on the couch about an hour ago. This is an encouraging sign, since neither of us has been able to sleep very well the past two nights.

It's been a great Father's Day. I'm going to recommend to the powers-that-be that we make Father's Day an annual thing. We could even do it the same time every year, like on the third Sunday of June.

I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud here.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Why Daddies Should Date Their Daughters

Here is the text of my guest post from Be A Good Dad. Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!

Our first date was to McDonald’s. It cost me $6.

She had pancakes with syrup and drank orange juice. I had a sausage mcmuffin and drank a small coffee.

As we ate, she would occasionally load up a fork with a bite of pancake and feed it to me across the table. She has a big heart, and you can see it in little things like that.

After we finished eating, we sat in the booth and talked. We tackled some of life’s big issues, like why the man at the next table was wearing a hat, and the types of things bunnies like to eat. And we fiddled with trivia, like why the air gets cold in winter.

Eventually, we got back in the car and headed home. But before all was said and done, I got her to commit to a second date with me.

My daughter is a great date, and I don’t think I’m too bad myself. I enjoy dating her, and my desire is that this will bear fruit years from now.

You see, there are things she needs to know about how she’s supposed to be treated. If I don’t teach her those things, some greasy sixteen year-old boy will when she’s a teenager. And I’m not having that.

I date my daughter so that she will know we have a one-on-one relationship. That I care for her as the unique individual she is. That she exists not as just one of my kids, but as my cherished daughter.

Here’s what I think she needs to know:

The source of her beauty rests inside her head, in the space between her ears, just behind those magnificent blue eyes. What makes her attractive is the sweetness and humor that pours out of her heart.

There are two parties to a conversation. I know from experience that talking isn’t a problem for her. But the person she’s with should be engaged, offering their thoughts and getting her to elaborate on things she’s said.

She should feel safe when she rides with someone. A car is a tool to get her from Point A to Point B in a safe and efficient manner. It’s not an amusement park ride. Just because it can go 120 mph doesn’t mean it should.

I could go on. But that’s a glimpse of the behaviors I’m modeling to my daughter on our dates. These are the things she should expect, years from now, when she begins to date boys her own age.

If I expect her to be as strong as an oak tree then, I need to plant the acorns today.

If you’re a dad of a daughter, make a date with your little girl. Take her out for breakfast or to a yard sale or to the hardware store.

It doesn’t cost much, but the payoff in the future will be huge.

Go read my guest post

I have a guest post up over at Be A Good Dad today.

Go check out Why Dads Should Date Their Daughters.

Then come back here and read about these dates:

Daddy gets around

Thanks!

Let's eat

Amanda at Oh Amanda has tagged me for a dining out meme. And not a moment too soon, because I'm struggling for content here lately. A big thank you to Amanda for the shout-out.

This meme is right up my alley, since I am a big fan of:

1. Food
2. Eating
3. Posts that practically write themselves

We live in a medium-sized city in Tennessee. We have many of the chain places that the rest of you do and we have what I'd consider an above-average number of great locally-owned restaurants. In short, this is an eater's town.

But since I'm trying to master time travel in my garage on the weekends anyway, I thought I'd take this meme and stretch it out across several cities and over 20 years or so. Without further delay, here are some of the great dishes I've crammed in my face and some of the great places I've done so:

The Village Inn - Tampa, Fla.
The Village Inn is a 24-hour diner-type restaurant in Tampa known mostly as a breakfast place. My parents would take us there pretty regularly while I was growing up, and I typically ordered - of all things - spaghetti. Yep, spaghetti at a diner. But it was good, and they offered creamy Italian dressing on the side salad. Creamy Italian dressing is probably the most under-appreciated salad dressings, but you can read all about that when I start my World's Most Under-appreciated Salad Dressings blog.

(Creamy Italian and Oil-and Vinegar, your day is almost here!)

Waffle House - Asheville, North Carolina
Next time you pass a Waffle House, stop the car, go in the restaurant and order a patty melt plate with hashbrowns with cheese and onions. Put a little bit of mustard on each half of the patty melt and a touch of ketchup on the hashbrowns.

You'll thank me.

As we all know, a Waffle House is a Waffle House, so why specify the one in Asheville?

I lived there (in Asheville, not the Waffle House) for a year after I graduated from college. In those days before Wife and I got married, we would routinely get breakfast at the Waffle House. The patty melt plate was my go-to dish. I picked the Asheville Waffle House because it reminds me of a great season of my life.

La Teresita - Tampa, Fla.
As you can see, I honed my palate in Tampa. La Teresita was my source for great Cuban food at absurdly low prices. It's a given than the black beans and rice at almost any Cuban place in Tampa are phenomenal, so I'd like to focus on my favorite main dish: Filet Salteado.

This dish is made, I assume, in a big cast-iron skillet. It has chunks of seasoned steak sauteed with onions, green peppers, mushrooms and chorizo. Once that stuff is cooked, it simmers for a few minutes in red wine. Just before serving, fried potatos are stirred in. The whole thing comes over a bed of yellow rice.

You can stuff yourself silly at La Teresita for under $10.

Joto - Tampa, Fla.
Authentic Japanese food. And by "authentic Japanese food" I mean sushi, sukiyaki and yakatori. Stuff like that. Not hibachi chicken covered in shrimp sauce, although I would put a hurtin' on that if you put it in front of me.

We knew Joto was good because a dear family friend, who is herself Japanese, would eat there with us. They were serving (and we were eating) sushi long before you could get it in the grocery store.

Harry's - Clinton, South Carolina
Harry's makes the list because it is the home of the Bird Dog. The Bird Dog is everything that is right with Southern cuisine and everything that is wrong with America all laid out on a hot dog bun.

A Bird Dog is a breaded, fried chicken strip laid in a hot dog bun. Next to a strip of bacon. Covered in honey mustard. With cheese melted over the top.

Just try to top that.

So there's the list. It's been many years since I've been in some of these places, but as far as I know all but Harry's are still open.

Now I need to tag five other people to hear about what/where they like to eat. And, although I have messed with the rules/format of this meme, I hope you'll go to Amanda's blog and have a look at the rules.

Here's who I'd like to hear from:

Karen at The Big Trade-Off
Mike at At Home Daddy
Darren aka Clare's Dad
Runaway Mommy
Shalee at Shalee's Diner

All this talk of food has made me hungry. I'm off to the fridge.

More than words

There are words that come across the lips of your spouse that you never forget.

"I love you." These words came during our final semester of college, after we'd been dating for a few months. The words and the moment will be with me forever.

"I do." Before God and 300 witnesses, she committed herself to me in marriage almost eight years ago. Those words stick with me, also.

"I'm pregnant." I heard those words cross her lips in February 2003. In October of that year, our beautiful Daughter was born.

"I punched too many people in the face last night. Now I'm sore." I heard these words flow from her lips last night as we were settling into our seats to watch some Entourage.

One of the spoils of Wife's shopping trip this past weekend was an early Father's Day gift for me: a Wii game system.

On Monday, I set my little debutante up on the Wii Boxing game. And for 30 minutes or so, while I snaked the kitchen sink for the 4,652 time in recent months, the Wife wailed on a series of opponents.

She really let them have it. And she retired a steady progression of opponents.

It was scary in a way, because since I watch a lot of CSI, I know that when you go after someone's face it's personal. There's rage or passion behind the assault.

Okay. Who am I kidding? It wasn't scary at all. It was really fun to watch.

Those boxers the system starts to throw at you as you progress get pretty rough in their own right, so by the time Wife hung up the remote, her forehead was glistening and her arms were tiring.

Ultimately, I'm just glad to know that if anyone ever says something disrespectful to Wife about me and there happens to be a Wii nearby and we can talk the disrespectful person into settling their difference of opinion with a game of Wii Boxing - if all those stars align - Wife will successfully defend my honor.

Problem solved

I'm sure by now the pins and needles are getting a little uncomfortable. So without further delay:

I have downloaded Firefox and installed it on our new computer. And life is, once again, back to normal.

Except better normal than before because this Mac is so fargin' sweet.

But here's the important thing: THANK YOU to everyone who pitched in with a comment to help me solve my publishing problem. If it weren't for your collective help, I'd still be here pecking out primitive, caveman blog posts totally devoid of fonts or links.

With that stuff restored, I can get back to the business on pecking out primitive, caveman posts completely devoid of substance or significance. Much more my style.

Speaking of cavemen, bonus points if you can tell me the origin of this line, "But Your Honor, I'm just a caveman!"

Seriously, thank you.

That is all.

If I wanted this kind of treatment...

...I'd just go back to the office.

She's three-and-a-half, and she's already seen through me.

I was getting Daughter ready for bed last night, and I couldn't seem to find the little Promise Bible we read every night.

As I was looking through stacks of books and under the bed, Daughter pulled me off the search.

"Daddy," she said. "I'll do it."

Excellent, I thought. The child is taking responsibility for her own belongings. This is good.

And right as I let my guard down, this one got me right between the eyes:

"This job is too big for you."

I chuckled and told her we could look for her book together, but she persisted.

"No Daddy. This job - (pause) - is too big for you."

And as much as I was caught off guard my her assessment of me, it turns out she was right.

Mommy came in, asked what was going on, and then promptly pulled the book out of the nightstand drawer.

I took the book from Wife and settled in the bed with Miss Senior Vice President of Human Resources to read bedtime stories.

Blogger doesn't like the new Mac

Okay Mac users, let me throw a question out there for you. I clicked to start a new post on Blogger on the sweet new MacBook, and the only tools available to me at the top of this message box are spellcheck and insert photo.

No font selection. No insert link. No type size. Just spellcheck and insert photo, sitting there at the end of the toolbar like Cliff and Norm.

Anyone out there know how to fix this?

An Apple today

The computer stork is on its way.

Wife was scheduled to fly with her Mom to Columbus, Ohio this weekend for a wedding. Air travel as we know it and The Lord Our God had other plans. A severe thunderstorm came through our area around the time she was scheduled to take off, which threw a wrench in the works. And apparently there was also some sort of major air travel snafu impacting much of the eastern seaboard yesterday. Who knew?

The backup plan offered by the airline would have put them in Columbus a few hours after the wedding began today. I haven't read much Emily Post, but I think it's generally accepted that the proper time to show up for a wedding is about 30 minutes before the ceremony. Not while the bride is tossing her bouquet.

So they scrapped their air travel adventure. They did manage to salvage a decent girls' weekend by heading a couple hours down the road to stimulate the economy of a larger town.

The larger town I speak of has a pretty nice mall. And this pretty nice mall has a little place called The Apple Store. Perhaps you've heard of it.

You may recall that our current home computer, a Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, circa 2004, has been trying to break up with us. But it won't just come right out and die on us. It's doing this weird passive-aggressive thing where it slows down periodically, shuts down without warning and is generally uncooperative.

So we've known a computer purchase is out there on the horizon somewhere.

Before Wife left this morning, I told her, "If you go into The Apple Store, and you feel confident enough, I trust you to do what you've got to do."

She called me late this afternoon to tell me that the deal was done. She was taking delivery of a brand new MacBook and two little friends - an iPod nano and a printer.

Wife mentioned in passing to Eric, her Apple Store guy, that I'm in graduate school. It's lucky she did. Since I'm a student, they knocked $100 off the computer and threw in the nano and printer for free (with mail-in rebate).

The only trouble is, Wife and her mom are spending the night in the larger town tonight and will do a little more shopping tomorrow. So I'm having to sweat through this ridiculous delayed gratification garbage you hear so much about.

In the grand scheme of things, a day is not too long to wait. By mid-afternoon tomorrow, I should be playing with our new baby, and Wife will be rocking out on her new nano!

Blog-n-roll

One of the things I enjoy most about having a blog is when I find out someone has added me to their blogroll.

The first person to add me to their blogroll was Long Island Dad. He was also the first "stranger" to post a comment on my blog. He has semi-retired from blogging while he handles some other commitments, but I owe him a debt of gratitude for being an early supporter.

Here are the other blogrolls I've found myself on in recent months:

At Home Daddy
BooMama
Clare's Dad
Ms. Crafty Wannabe
Port City Ponderings
Runaway Mommy
The Philosopher Dad
The Big Trade-Off
Kittyhox
lola.makes.three

Thank you, blogrollers! Your support means a lot to me!

If I'm on your blogroll and have somehow overlooked you on this list, I sincerely apologize. Just jump in with a comment and let me know.

Thanks!

If you ever need to torture me...

....cover me in Coppertone and send me on my way.

I'd say that - generally speaking - I have relatively few idiosyncrasies.

I don't measure my sideburns with a ruler to make sure they're even.

I don't rearrange cash in my wallet so all the ex-Presidents are facing the same way.

I don't share inappropriate amounts of personal information with people I don't know.

Yet when it comes to sunscreen, and the application thereof, I am an absolute freak show.

I imagine the origins of my lunacy date back to my childhood. Growing up in Florida, you spend a lot of time with sun, sand and saltwater. Fishing, boating, water skiing. You get the idea.

The result of a lot of time spent in the sun as a youngster (without ever getting tan, for some reason) is that I can't stand the way sunscreen feels on my skin now. Can't. Stand. It.

Which makes summer golf interesting, and makes trips to the beach downright stressful.

To give you an idea of just how large a fruit loop I am in this area:

If I've been in the saltwater, I must rinse immediately with fresh water upon getting out. The sensation of sunscreen on the skin is bad enough. We don't need to bring invite salt to this party.

If I've put sunscreen on and taken the shirt off on beach (and my apologies to all you beach goers that have to see that!), the shirt does not go back on until I've had a real shower. The way a shirt sticks to me when I'm covered in sunscreen gives me the willies.

Now let's work with both of those previous items of weirdness. If there were ever a situation where I were not able to rinse saltwater off using fresh water - and - I had to put a shirt back on over the whole deal:

Call the life insurance company.

Make sure the premium is paid-up.

And then kill me. Right there.

The sweet release of death would be a nice relief from the horror of all that greasiness, saltiness, shirty-ness. It simply could not get any worse.

And I know how dramatic that sounds. And I know you want to jump in with a comment and be all "But what about all the people in Darfur? What about how bad they've got it?"

This would be worse. At least until I could find the closest shower it would be.

So to summarize, one great idiosyncrasy of mine is that I can't stand sunscreen. Feel free to chime in if you can relate, or if there's something in your life that's equivalent.

I'm with the Mattress Police. There are no tags on these mattresses.

As a general rule, you shouldn't trust any man who can't quote lines from the movie Fletch.

On Tuesday, I got this email from a buddy:

From: (Name Deleted)

Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 11:01 am

To: MyBestInvest

Subject: Fletch on cable tonight

- I'm afraid there is someone sitting next to you.

- Oh, for...God dawd dawd! Who is it, Mr. Sinlindin?


And that email made me laugh very hard. So I emailed him back:

From: MyBestInvest

Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 11:08 am

To: (Name Deleted)

Subject: Re: Fletch on cable tonight

- Sugar, Mr. Po0n?

- No. Never. Never.


And I assume that made him laugh, because he sent this back:

From: (Name Deleted)

Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 11:28 am

To: MyBestInvest

Subject: Re: Fletch on cable tonight

- What kind of name is Po0n?

- Comanche Indian



I thought that was great, so I volleyed back with this:

From: MyBestInvest

Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 11:31 am

To: (Name Deleted)

Subject: Re: Fletch on cable tonight

- And who are you?
- I'm Freda's boss.

- And who is Freda?

- My secretary.



It ended there, presumably because my buddy had actual work to do.

Today I saw that William at Poop and Boogies is raising his son to be a cultured and honorable young man, just as I will do with my Son in a few years.

I'm going to Thousand Island on my next vacation, too

One of the highlights of the season finale of The Office was when they told us that Creed is a fellow blogger.

I laughed as hard at the Creed Thoughts portion of that episode as I did during the dinner table prayer scene in Talladega Nights, which means I was curled up in a ball fighting catch my breath.

Very funny stuff.

I discovered today that you can get inside the mind of Creed at www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts

My life will never be the same.

Wednesday round-up

If you could look inside my head right now, you'd see a little Old West town with tumbleweeds blowing through. There's just not a lot going on up there right now.

For that reason, here's a quick list of stuff:

Speaking of personality tests, when Wife was pregnant both times, I thought it was funny to rename the mild contractions she would have from Braxton-Hicks to Myers-Briggs.

If you've ever worked for a big company, you've probably taken a Myers-Briggs test during a touchy-feely team-building meeting.

I got so accustomed to calling Wife's contractions Myers-Briggs around the house that I eventually forgot what the real name was. And I consequently looked like a total buffoon when I described Wife's Myers-Briggs contractions to a pregnant friend of hers.

Since we're lodged firmly in the vast wasteland that is summertime TV, Wife and I are working our way through some HBO shows on DVD. We started this two summers ago, when we tackled several seasons of The Sopranos.

This summer we're working on more Sopranos, Big Love and Entourage.

Nourishing our souls with good stuff, aren't we? And don't you like how I said we're "working on" these shows, as if there's some sort of effort involved?

When I mentioned yesterday that my brother would get a kick out of the part of the personality test that said I embrace new technology, the reason is that he received all the technology genes in our family.

There was absolutely no sharing of computer smarts among the siblings. He is good with that stuff to the same extreme that I am bad with that stuff. He has put together an accomplished career in networking and software. He's my tech support when I have questions like:

• What is this "email" stuff, anyway?
• Should I upgrade from dialup access?
• Do you think cell phones are here to stay?
• Is Bill Gates really going to send me money just for forwarding an email around?

Anyhow, I have no shortage of respect for him and his mad tech skillz.

That's it for today.

This one's slightly off target

The personality test I mentioned in yesterday's post also identified a secondary personality type.

It called me an Innovator:

Innovators are successful, sophisticated, take-charge people with high self-esteem. Because they have such abundant resources, they exhibit all three primary motivations in varying degrees. They are change leaders and are the most receptive to new ideas and technologies. Innovators are very active consumers, and their purchases reflect cultivated tastes for upscale, niche products and services.

Image is important to Innovators, not as evidence of status or power but as an expression of their taste, independence and personality. Innovators are among the established and emerging leaders in business and government, yet they continue to seek challenges. Their lives are characterized by variety. Their possessions and recreation reflect a cultivated taste for the finer things in life.

This one makes me chuckle, since a lot of it sounds like it directly contradicts the primary personality type.

I especially like the last part about "a cultivated taste for the finer things in life." Those words just don't seem to equate themselves with the same guy that has sung the praises of bacon-cheese Krystals and meats wrapped in other meats on this blog.

I think those that know me, my brother in particular, would get a kick out of the part that says I am "receptive...to new technologies." If by "new" they mean early 1990s era technology, then this analysis is dead-on.

Finally, phrases like "successful" and "abundant resources" are applied pretty liberally in this case. Check with me again in 10 years to see if these words fit better. By that time, my big business idea (a chain of for-profit schools teaching kids useful workplace skills like blacksmithing, glass-blowing and turning straw into gold) and my financial planning (can you say "state lottery tickets"?) should have fully played out.

I'm just glad I passed

I'm in a marketing class now as part of this MBA program I'm taking. One of the first activities we did was to take a personality survey to see what type of consumers/people we are.

I was impressed with the result not so much for its accuracy but for the simple fact that I didn't fail the test. So apparently, much to the surprise of many, I do have some shred of personality.

Anyhow, this test identified my primary personality type as an Achiever. Here's the description:

Motivated by the desire for achievement, Achievers have goal-oriented lifestyles and a deep commitment to career and family. Their social lives reflect this focus and are structured around family, their place of worship, and work. Achievers live conventional lives, are politically conservative, and respect authority and the status quo. They value consensus, predictability, and stability over risk, intimacy and self-discovery.

With many wants and needs, Achievers are active in the consumer marketplace. Image is important to Achievers; they favor established, prestige products and services that demonstrate success to their peers. Because of their busy lives, they are often interested in a variety of time-saving devices.

So what do you think? Does that sound like me?

Gone fishin', but now I'm back

Check out where I got to spend Saturday.

Not bad, eh?

For my friend D's birthday, his wife got him a guided fly fishing trip with a friend.

He chose me to go with him, thinking that choosing his smallest and skinniest friend would allow for more beer weight on the boat.

But alas, the guide doesn't allow beer on the river. And it was 7 a.m. when we hit the water.

So D's plan backfired a little.

We had a great time and caught plenty of fish. Brown trout, brook trout and rainbow trout. I caught 12 and D caught 11.

Mountain Weekend, Part Two

Put on some comfortable eyewear. This is a long one.

Since I am a geezer trapped in a 30 year-old body, I was the first one awake on Saturday morning. I was up at 6:15.

That means I got the first shower and the first cup of coffee, which is a big reward in my mind. But to be honest, I'll bet the showers and cups of coffee for the lucky ones who can still sleep until 9:30 are just as good.

By "lucky ones" I mean: those whose lives and sleep schedules haven't been ravaged by parenthood.

But on with the story. After a while everyone was up and a hearty breakfast of quiche and fruit, prepared by SP and PP, was spread out on the table. We put a hurtin' on the breakfast, and after 30 minutes of visiting, a few couples headed out to walk, jog and otherwise exercise.

Apparently I wasn't clear in my emails touting the weekend that it was a vacation-type trip. Physical activity was meant to be kept to a minimum. But to each his own.

On Friday, I scheduled us a 12:30 p.m. tee time, so around 11:30 the boys loaded up and headed down to the golf course. We spent some time on the practice range to see what kind of shape our respective games were in.

I quickly learned that I should not wager any money on my own game that day. Which is a pretty solid rule for me any day.

Once we were warmed up, we moved on to more important things. Namely, hot dogs.

I am here to tell you that there is no place on Earth where a hot dog tastes better than on or near a golf course. It's a fact. Scientists have proven it. Look it up.

And these doggies did not disappoint. I almost cried they were so good. And they provided just the right about of pork lips and hooves and triglycerides to kick off a great golf outing with the boys.

The round was great, and I don't think it would be overstating things at all to say that the highlight - for everyone - was when I holed a chip from off the green for birdie on Number 10.

Granted, it was from only about 10 feet off the green, but it was a moment of true sporting perfection. That shot sparked an emotional celebration similar to what you saw when the Americans beat the Russian hockey team in the Olympics years ago.

At least that's what was going on in my mind. In reality, I didn't want to rub my mad golf skillz in everyone's face, so I said something like, "Wow. Cool."

All the boys played solid golf, so the day was well spent. Once we were finished, we got back to the house to find that our ladies were still off stimulating the economy of a little resort town nearby.

We took some frosty beverages and chips out to the deck and awaited their return.

Once the girls were home, we had a happy hour out on the deck with drinks and what Wife dubbed the "dip trifecta" - pico de gallo, black bean salsa and guacamole.

Friends, that hour of snacking on the deck was as heavenly as any I have ever experienced. The flavor of each dip was as beautiful as the woman who prepared it.

But let me pause to tell you about the guacamole. I'm relatively new to the guacamole scene. In the past, I've always understood it to be superfluous green mush containing no nutritional or flavor value.

Not that nutritional value has ever been a concern to me.

In recent years, particularly since the opening of our favorite burrito place, I've grown to love the guac.

This batch, prepared by RD, was just right. A little bit salty, thanks to some margarita salt. A little bit tart, thanks to some lime juice. Good stuff.

After gorging ourselves on the dip trifecta, we grabbed our golf clubs and walked down to the golf course. All the golfers had long since finished, so we had the place to ourselves. The location of the house allows you to make a nice little loop through holes 4, 5 and 6.

The girls tagged along behind us and every so often would stop with us to hit a ball.

Once again, I was able to put on a clinic for my playing partners by rolling in a six-footer for birdie as we played Number 4 the second time through.

Granted, I put my first two tee shots into the woods. But we were playing using a rare rule system which allows the player to hit as many tee shots as he wants until he finally hits one he likes. It's a great format.

After we finished thrashing one of Golf Digest's Top 100 courses, it was time to light up the grill and cook up burgers, hot dogs and chicken. We ate dinner on the deck and stayed out there talking for an hour or so.

Before we wrapped up dinner, BMcG and SMcG rolled in from Atlanta. BMcG had a professional commitment earlier in the day, so they were late getting their weekend started. We fixed a couple plates for them, they ate, and we cleaned up.

We hit the couches after that while we tried to round everyone up for a game of Cranium or Mafia. But we never could get everyone huddled up in the same place at the same time, so we went to Plan B, which was watching the SNL Best of Will Ferrell DVD.

Just as we did on the night before, we all made it about 30 minutes before we had to pull the plug and head for bed.

Coming up on Mountain Weekend, Part Three: waffles, brunch, physical exertion, and time to say goodbye.