Blog highlights from 2007

Looking back over 2007, I can proudly say that this has been the best year this blog has ever seen.

I started the blog last January, so I guess that makes sense.

I was reading through some old posts today and got a kick out of what were - for me - some of the more memorable lines. Some are serious, most are lighthearted. All are near and dear to my heart.

I'd be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to thank you for reading. Your visits and comments mean more to me than you know.

Without further delay, here's some of my favorite stuff from the first year of My Best Investments.

Happy New Year!

From He's Sick
There is a very short list of things that compare to the feeling of the limp weight of your sleeping child against you.

From My most expensive piece of clothing
If I had a time machine, I'd go back to around the time Wife and I got married, and buy a nice tux with an adjustable waist. That thing would have paid for itself by now.

Of course, if I had a time machine, a lot of things would be different.

From Best news story ever
But to all my Alaskan friends, I must remind you that part of what makes this country great is that from time to time, a few are called on to sacrifice for the good of the whole. Just look at our tax system. Or Social Security. Or the first few weeks of American Idol.

From How Honda will win the war in Iraq
Apparently, it's very difficult for drivers to distinguish between a parking space that's totally empty and a space that's occupied by a ton of sheet metal, leather, rubber and glass.

From Add one more name to the Axis of Evil
We stood toe-to-toe with the Elmo balloon guy and didn't cave to his high pressure sales tactics.

From If anyone could pull it off, he could
I'll understand when my son is a teenage alcoholic. With a Camaro. And dreadlocks. And a slutty girlfriend.

From Daddy gets around
I knew when I walked in there that I wasn't headed into the Jet Propulsion Lab, but I at least thought making the association between Hot Cakes and pancakes was within reach.

From I'm a c-list invite, but I'll take it
When she was finished, I told the class a little bit about where I work and what Daughter and I like to do together. Then I explained Keynesian economic theory, currency arbitrage and hedging strategies to them. I also showed them how paprika is made.

Then I read a book about farm animals and went on my way.

From To the bird that's been anointing my car
And it's safe to say - 85% probability - that I have never evacuated my bowels on or near any of your possessions.

From Lord of the Den
Son's face is covered in warpaint. I am covered in the blood of the plump, asthmatic neighborhood kid we hunted down for dinner.

From A Boston butt is part of a pig
At 6:55 every Thursday morning, I take a big Boston butt to the face.

From I will consult for your business 20 years ago
Anytime you wrap an animal in another animal and eat it, I'm in!

From Bloggin' to the Idols, Part II
Wife is wearing a sourish grimace as we watch because it appears her beloved Blake, for whom she would trade me in a New York minute, has dyed his hair. Apparently the brown hair is ruining her crush.

Just a point of clarification: I have brown hair.

From Happy Father's Day...LIVE
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.

From A baby on my hip would have rounded out the package
This afternoon, I walked out of a liquor store toting a brown bag with a bottle of wine in it, climbed into a minivan, and sang along to Chris Tomlin's "Holy is the Lord" as I pulled out of the parking lot.

I also wonder what it would be like to live in a treehouse

I've heard people say before that the human brain is vastly underutilized. If the rumor is true, we only use something like 10% of our brain's potential.

I don't know whether that's right or wrong, but I know one thing: I could certainly make better use of my brain.

I waste a pretty fair amount of brain power thinking about things that hopefully will never come to pass.

Last night, for instance, I was cooking kielbasa and cabbage for the family. As the smells were rising from the skillet, I thought to myself: "I really love kielbasa. If I had to pick one food to eat for the rest of my life, kielbasa would definitely be a contender."

And that got me thinking about the pros and cons of eating kielbasa every day for the rest of my life.

That's good use of my brain power (not to mention private college tuition), right?

Other times, I've spent time thinking about how I would survive in prison. If nothing else, I'd get to workout consistently and could probably get a lot of reading done. I'm not so sure about how bathing and time out in "the yard" would go.

I also think about how hard I would work to get my life back on track after getting out of prison.

None of this takes into account the fact that I am a decent, law-abiding person - which makes the entire line of thinking moot.

I guess all of that is to say that my head - like this old house of ours - is drafty and leeches precious energy out into the atmosphere, from whence it can never be recovered.

I'll bet there's more than a few of you out there who are wishing I'd take a portion of that energy and apply it to this blog. If I did, you may have something more enticing to read than:

• Me get headache
• Buddy's head go bump
• Me like funny movie line

So now that I've outed myself as a serial thought-waster, let me pose the question to you: what silly things do you ponder?

Yes, this prescription is endorsed by Dr. Mom

It's pretty clear who wears the pants in our house.

Just a moment ago, I ran upstairs to give Daughter a dose of medicine for a nasty cough.

I handed her the little cup and told her, "This will make you stop coughing."

She looked at the cup for a moment. As she took it from my hand - just before she raised it to her lips - she asked me:

"Does Mommy think this is a good idea?"

At least there's an explanation for his head hurting

For a while it was looking as if we might make it through the Christmas season without illness or injury.

How quickly things change.

After a fun pre-Christmas dinner with my family on Sunday, we made it home to get the kids in bed and get ready for our Christmas Eve activities.

In the garage, the kids climbed out of the car and headed for the door into our kitchen. There's a step-down a few paces in front of the door itself, and there's also a brick corner which juts out from the door frame.

In his eagerness to get inside and get in bed, Son missed the step and fell face-forward into the brick corner by the door frame.

I watched it all unfold, so I knew it was a pretty hard spill. Luckily, the kid has a nice thick skull. But I had no idea just how bad a crash it was until I picked him up.

When I turned him around to look at him, there was a huge vein on his forehead which was swollen and protruding. It looked like it was going to burst at any moment.

We got inside and I took Son to the freezer for some ice. Wife grabbed the phone and dialed our pediatrician (a family friend) at home.

I told him exactly what happened and he diagnosed the issue as a hematoma, which created what he called a "pump knot" on Son's head. If I were truly a good blogger, I would have taken a picture of the wound in the midst of the crisis and posted it here. But once again, the "needs" of my "family" get in the way of good blogging.

Anyhow, the doctor said the pump knot was no big deal but would leave Son's head black and blue for a few days. He also suggested that since Son's head took a pretty good rap, we ought to wake him up every two hours in the night and make sure he had full use of both sides of his body and that his pupils were equal on each side.

Relaying instructions like those to a concerned mother can be a challenge, even for a man as eloquent as me.

No matter how you say it, the adrenaline coursing through the mother's veins makes this message:

"He said Son is fine, but we need to wake him up every two hours and make sure he can move both sides of his body. If he looks like he's favoring one side, the doctor wants to see him,"

sound like this:

"He said Son is fine, but we need to STAND GUARD BY THE BED to make sure that Son is not CRIPPLED FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE!"

And rightfully so. It was scary stuff, especially since it looked as if the vein on his forehead was going to blow at any minute.

After a few minutes, we got everyone calmed down (ourselves included) and got the kids in bed. Two hours later, we checked on Son before we went to bed. Throughout the night, we were up every two hours to make sure he was okay.

And he was.

If nothing else, the round-the-clock checkups turned out to be a great excuse for us to stand by our baby boy's bedside and watch the sweet little thing sleep.

Take this shot and call me when you wake up in two days

For most of my life, I've lived with headaches.


It's not much fun, but I guess the upside is that I've developed a pretty high tolerance for head pain.


For all the exploration that's been done into the cause of my headaches over the years (I'm sure my parents spent a fortune sending me to various doctors as a child), I've never received a definitive answer.


The best guess is that they're related to stress. So to prevent my headaches, all I need to do is eliminate stress from my life - which shouldn't be a problem for an ambitious 31-year old father of two who is his family's sole breadwinner, right?


Two weeks ago, at the humble suggestion (read: ferocious ultimatum) of Wife, I made an appointment with my doctor to talk about my headaches again.


He gave me a handful of samples of Maxalt to take. And this was not just any Maxalt, this was a new form that melts on your tongue, thereby eliminating the pesky hassle of swallowing from the migraine-relief process.


Last Tuesday morning, I was awakened from my sleep by the pain of a headache. So I trotted downstairs to take a Maxalt and two Advil.


I forgot the part about it being a melts-in-your-mouth pill, so I washed it down with water and headed back to bed.


Within 10 minutes, I was hugging the toilet, giving it a vomitous answer to the question, "So, how do you like the Maxalt?"


I climbed back in bed and Wife sprung into nurse mode. Within minutes, she was back at the bedside with a tall glass of red Gatorade and some saltines.


I had several more close-talking conversations with the toilet over the next few hours.


By 11:30 a.m., I'd had all the headache and vomiting I cared for, so I asked Wife to either take me someplace with doctors and drugs or take me out in the yard and shoot me.


Despite the fact that I have a life insurance policy that would buy her a lot of shoes and handbags, Wife opted to keep me around me a while longer and took me to the emergency room.


Less than 15 minutes after walking in the door, I was taken back to an exam room. A nurse took my vitals and jotted down my symptoms. Another young lady finished up my registration (by "registration" I mean: just how are you going to pay for this, Mr. MBI?).


The doctor was in to see me a few minutes later. We talked about my symptoms. He asked if I use coke or pot. He had me breathe while he held a stethoscope to my back.


Finally, he said, "Sounds like you've had these headaches before and this is just a really bad one. I can order all the tests - CT scan, lumbar puncture - but I think a shot of demerol and phenergan will fix you up. You tell me what you'd like to do."


Out of reverence to the movie Spinal Tap, I momentarily considered having the lumbar puncture.


Ultimately, I opted for the strong narcotic. The doctor went on his way after telling me someone would be in shortly to med me up.


After 20 minutes or so, a guy came in with a needle full of demerol and another needle full of phenergan. Then he told me that he would be giving me these shots in the "hips" which is the fancy hospital word for "buttocks."


He made very sure to tell me how much these shots were going to hurt, which I thought was a little inconsiderate on his part. Then I assumed the position and he jabbed me with the demerol.


He was right. It hurt.


Then he told me about how that was nothing and that the next shot would not only hurt, but it would burn as the medicine went deep into my muscle.


Awesome.


Before we got to that shot though, we had a little discussion about the dosage on the phenergan. I used some of Wife's stash from her morning sickness days earlier in the morning.


The dude disappeared to check with the doc on the dosage.


Ten minutes later he was back, and made sure to tell me one final time how much I was going to hate the shot I was about to receive.


That's good care, friends.


But as Debbie Downer as they guy was leading up to the shot, I've got to give him credit for being dead right - the shot was a doozy.


And fellas, let me tell you this: you haven't lived until you've had a man put a tiny bandaid on each buttcheek.


I don't remember too much after the shots, because they took effect pretty quickly.


We were discharged from the ER about 30 minutes after I got my shots. On the whole, it was a good experience. The people were nice. The wait wasn't long. I got the care I needed.


I was a little surprised that none of the doctors were shot or stabbed while I was there. There also weren't any doctors fornicating in coat closets. No one begged me to let them do exploratory surgery on me. And no ambulances or helicopters crashed into the building.


So in that sense, I didn't really feel like I was in an ER. But maybe TV embellishes things a little. I don't know.


Anyhow, Wife took me home, tucked me into bed, and I slept the afternoon away.


I woke up hours later with no headache but still loopy from the medicine. I truly don't see how these pill-popping housewives you see on Dr. Phil get through life on pain medication. It's a nasty feeling.


By most indications, I'm better. Except for the fact that since Tuesday, I've had soreness and stiffness in my neck.


My theory is that my little neck has simply gotten tired of hauling this much awesome brain around.


So here's what I'm wondering: any migraine sufferers out there? Anyone have similar reactions to prescription migraine medication?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you and your families from MyBestInvest, Wife, Daughter and Son!

We don't get French benefits?

I need to get better at gaming the system.

Why, you ask?

Because I have taken today, Christmas Eve, as vacation from work. When I signed up to take today off a few months ago, I didn't know that the office would be closing at 1:00 p.m.

Thus, I am giving up a half day of paid vacation. I clearly don't put enough thought into squeezing every penny out of my company bennies.

A couple years ago, I changed employers and entered an industry that is notoriously holiday-happy. We'll close for anything.

My previous experience had been in a very martyr-ish environment where you were expected to eat, sleep and beathe the job. If you dared take a day off, you'd better be handing out business cards wherever you were.

Needless to say, I didn't take many days off from that place. The guilty feelings for taking time off drowned out the pleasure of being out of the office.

Anyhow, coming out of that situation into a field where there are more days off than you can shake a stick at, I didn't fully comprehend the full host of holidays we'd receive.

So I scheduled myself for vacation on the second Monday in October. Which, it turns out, is a holiday. Columbus Day or something silly like that.

Now that's poor vacation planning. At least I've learned in years since to not give myself a day off that I'd be getting anyway.

Now I just take vacation on half-day holidays. And that's progress on some level.

Movie Line Friday

Time for another round of Movie Line Friday. Here's this week's line:

We don't usually pick up hitchhikers...but I'm gonna go with my instincts on this one. Saddle up, partner!

Can you name the movie?

Whatever happened to reruns of Lassie?

Dear Nickelodeon,

I want to start by thanking you for the good things you do.

I want to thank you for You Can't Do That on Television. I want to thank you for Double Dare. Those shows were a nice part of my childhood.

I also think it's pretty cool that you dreamed up Noggin. My kids are crazy about The WonderPets, Diego and The Backyardigans. Good stuff. Keep up the good work.

Now on to the not-so-good stuff. Earlier this week, we learned that the 16 year-old star of your show Zoey 101 is pregnant. I'm sure this was a surprise to you, as well.

How could you have imagined that your show and its star wouldn't have escaped the human carnival that is the Spears family?

Far more concerning to me than this young girl's pregnancy is the fact that you feel like it's your job to educate your audience about the pros and cons of s*xual relationships between young, young kids.

There was a time when this girl's pregnancy would have been a scandal. It would have been a tragedy. It would have been a disaster for your network.

Today it's nothing of the sort. Rather, it's an opportunity for you to give us a TV special about "how people know when they are in love, when is the right time to have s*x, and what are the value systems of their parents and friends."

If I understand your rationale, you're saying that we parents should trust you - you who have no plans to cancel the show starring the pregnant 16 year-old - to teach America's children about appropriate behavior and value systems?

No thanks. I think you've done enough.

If you really want to do something that will help, let me suggest this:

Cancel the show. Send your teenage star to the house. Make this a scandal. Show your audience that teenage pregnancy - while not a death sentence - is not something to be glamorized and glorified.

I'm going to have to conclude my thoughts there, since this note has been way too serious and has drifted outside the typical content for this blog. And by "typical content" I mean stories about stupid things I do, silly things the kids say, and funny lines from movies.

Most sincerely,
MyBestInvest

If they didn't have a monopoly, I might take my business elsewhere

God is clearly punishing us for getting cable.

For the last four years or so, we've only had the most basic of basic cable - all of our local channels, C-SPAN and the Weather Channel.

When we moved in August, we bundled everything together - cable, phone and Internet. The bundled deal includes about 100 cable channels.

Since we made the switch, we've had technicians out to fix about half a dozen different problems. We've also had a lingering billing issue (they've been crediting our payments to the wrong account) that has resulted in periodic collection calls.

Back when we just had the basic channels, there were no service calls. There was no trouble at all, which leads me to believe that we're being punished for upgrading our service. Take today's experience as evidence:

About two months ago, the cable in our bedroom went out for no good reason. After climbing around the crawlspace a few times, I decided to have the pros from the cable company look at it.

Long story short, they came today and fixed the problem. But not without knocking a shutter off the side of the house in the process. And by "shutter" I mean a superfluous window accessory made in the early 1930s back when stuff was still made in America from actual wood. And by "off the side of the house" I mean from a second story window.

When the guy called me outside to show me, he explained that he was in a bit of a predicament. Since the problem was taking longer to fix than anticipated, he clocked out at the scheduled end time. He knocked the shutter off the house after he clocked out, which presented a bit of a timecard issue for him.

Technically, he wasn't at my house when he knocked the shutter off. What to do?

He offered me two choices. First, I could find someone to hang the shutter back up on my own. Or second, I could report the damage to Charter.

If I reported the problem, that would tell his supervisor that he was still at my house after clocking out and he would be flogged mercilessly just days before Christmas. If I didn't report the problem, he would think I was a cool guy and it would be our little secret and I would have to hang my own 1930s shutter back up on the second story window.

Hmm (scratching chin). What to do?

I opted to report the damage to Charter. The technician is probably being waterboarded even as I write this.

Yet tonight, while he gets pink-slipped, I can flip channels for a few minutes before we go to sleep. And I can sleep soundly knowing that the cable company - not me - is responsible for hoisting the shutter back up to the second story window.

And that's really what this time of year is all about, right?

We all scream for...

Wife and I enjoy the occasional bowl of ice cream.

And when I say "occasional" I mean it in the same way that Britney Spears "occasionally" is a human train wreck.

During American Idol season, our palates sang to the tune of Edy's Soulful Sundae Cone. Now that it's Christmas, every night is a Silent Night - at least for a moment - as we munch on peppermint ice cream.

(See what I did there? You like?)

It's always a nice treat to try a new flavor of ice cream. But just like anything else, inventing new ice cream flavors must have its own set of challenges.

Simply put, ice cream creators can't be right every time. You know there's some stuff that winds up on the cutting room floor.

So what do you think are some of the ice cream flavors that were nixed before they ever saw the light of day? Add to my list:

• Chips and salsa
• Frosted Flakes
• Denver omelet
• Aquafresh
• Biscuits 'n' gravy
• Fish and chips
• Marlboro Light
  

Answer to Movie Line Friday

Congratulations to Boodaddy, who correctly answered that this week's movie line:

"Troubled childhood? Only if call being nine years old with a 35 year-old girlfriend 'troubled'."

is from the Will Ferrell masterpiece Blades of Glory.

He also gets 1,000 bonus points for correctly naming Chazz Michael Michaels as the character delivering the line. Way to go, BD.

It kinda sounds like fun

Karen earned the privilege of serving her community by participating in jury duty this week. Lucky lady.

I've never had the pleasure of being called for jury duty. If I am ever called, I think I can get out of it pretty easily. There are perks to being a pregnant pro-death penalty breastfeeding actuary whose family dog was shot with a handgun by a drunk driver. (In case there's any question - none of those are actually true)

Earlier this year, a friend of mine got called for jury duty. In Washington DC.

Fortunately for me, he had his Blackberry with him, and he sent me funny updates throughout the day. Here's what he sent:

- Sitting here in DC Superior Court looking around me wondering, "so these are my peers?"

- Fast forward to this great rule they have where they give you $4 a day compensation on travel. I think this is the big lure for about 90% of these folks. I kid you not that a few have made jokes about how this would be a cool "job."

- They have 100 of us in a room and only 7 or 8 of us made friends with a stick of deodorant this morning.

- One more thing occurred to me when this dude just walked by. We may both agree that "Jesus is the boss!" but I just choose not to have it airbrushed on a t-shirt and matching cap.

Even though jury duty is probably a hassle in most cases, my friend's comments are proof to me that the people-watching potential is virtually unlimited.

Movie Line Friday

I'm a little late getting Movie Line Friday up today.

I wish I had a cool excuse for not doing it sooner, but I simply forgot. Here's this week's line:

"Troubled childhood? Only if you call being nine years old with a 35 year old girlfriend 'troubled'."

Bonus points if you can name the character in addition to the movie.

Good luck!

Apparently I can't not be cheesy

Back in November, Wife and I celebrated our 8th anniversary.

Since our anniversary came at the end of the month-long string of family birthdays, we were both lacking in inspiration to do something big and celebratory. In an effort to mark the occasion of our anniversary in a thoughtful way, I set out in early October on a quest to find Wife some good new music.

What resulted from my several weeks or hard work (read: hours cruising iTunes) was the modern day equivalent of that cheesy staple of any high school romance: the mix tape.

Here's what I put on the CD:

Piano Song - meiko
Love - Matt White
Carolina - Matt Wertz
Come on Get Higher - Matt Nathanson
Silver Lining - Rilo Kiley
The Way I Am - Ingrid Michaelson
Somebody Loved - The Weepies
Daughter - Loudon Wainwright III
Pictures of You - The Last Goodnight
Your Heart is an Empty Room - Death Cab for Cutie
1234 - Feist
I'm Not Who I Was - Brandon Heath
Counting to 100 - Matt Wertz
Close Call - Rilo Kiley
Section 12: Hold Me Now - The Polyphonic Spree
World Spins Madly On - The Weepies
One Fine Wire - Colbie Caillat
Stupid for You - Marie Digby
How Lucky We Are - meiko
Gotta Have You - The Weepies
Sideways - Let's Go Sailing

It's almost more goodness than one CD can bear. And the Wife loves it, so I accomplished my goal. If you're in the market for some new tunes, check some of these out.

Urgent plea for non-important help

Today's tip on How to Kill a Blog is this: Limit your posting to once a month.

It seems to be working rather nicely for me.

I need your help, dear readers. I have been asked to write a column for the January issue of a local business magazine. The only problem is, my writer's block isn't limited to just this blog. It carries over into my real life as well.

So here's what I need. The theme of the issue is "What's Now, What's Next". I'd like to offer some light-hearted (read: off-the-wall) predictions about what's ahead in 2008 in the business world.

Something like this:

As a convenience to its customers, Starbucks will roll out technology that enables mochachino addicts to have their paychecks direct-deposited to the Starbucks cash register.

- or -

NBC, TLC and Discovery will join forces to launch a reality show called Flip This Deadliest Loser. The show will pit teams of obese people against each other to see who can make the most money and lose the most weight while buying, renovating and reselling a crab boat.

Flip This Deadliest Loser is not to be confused with the major motion picture Flip the Dead Loser, in which a down-on-his-luck guy named Flip dies from an allergic reaction to waffle fries.

- or -

Panera Bread will finally come clean that their Cinnamon Crunch bagel (God bless the Cinnamon Crunch) is a dessert rather than a breakfast food.

Okay, I've primed the pump. Let's see what you can come up with.

And the quicker the better! I've got to write this thing pronto!

Thanks!