Moustache Sandy

It has been an incredibly crazy past couple of days for the Atlantic coast states (and continues forward with basic supplies dwindling). Hurricane Sandy (or Post-Tropical Storm Sandy to be technical) made landfall in New Jersey on Monday October 30th. It has left behind a swathe of destruction. Mother Nature is no joke, and she ever so often reminds us who is in charge. My head has been spinning over what has been left behind by this massive storm.

My spinning head, made way around to a short, but true story I shared on Facebook about my car ride home about a week ago. This is how it went (edited for grammar and syntax):

Driving home tonight I saw a creepy crawler moving across the windshield. The spider was between the size of a nickel and a quarter. Initially I wasn’t sure if it was on the inside or the outside, so I kept one eye on it, and the other on the road. I was eventually sure it was on the inside, as it passed the windshield wiper test. I figured just leave it be, no big deal. But that backfired, I started to get a bit weary as it crept in and out of the shadows. Losing sight of it caused the eerie feeling it was crawling on me, or worse crawling through my hair, or worse exploring my ear canal…you know irrational non-sense. So with the irrational heebee-geebees (spelling?) I started to scan the windshield for it. As soon as I spotted it I bare handed that MFer into oblivion. I learned today to always kill the spider, if not you will probably realize you should have killed him in the first place, when you knew where he was.

This story has absolutely nothing to do with Sandy, in a direct sense. But, and I didn’t realize at the time of sharing the story, my little life experience was the pure embodiment of carpe diem (“seize the day” – for those without your handy Latin translator, or whom have never read Horace, or more importantly seen Dead Poets Society). It seems cliche (rather it is cliche, since they are born out of truth), but our existence here is limited (you can argue about the afterlife amongst yourselves). Most of us know this, but we need the occasional reminder (Cue mother nature). Take charge of your life, when you see that person that moves you like no other, that career opportunity across the globe, that chance to do something scary but you know inside you want it, you need to barehand that MFer into oblivion, and don’t let go until you are sure you’ve exasperated all your efforts, you never know if you will ever get the chance again.

Wait, you must be wondering right now (or not), “Why did you call your post Moustache Sally?!?

Today marks the beginning of Movember. For those of you not in the know, “During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces, in the US and around the world. With their Mo’s, these men raise vital awareness and funds for men’s health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer initiatives.” I am barehanding that MFer, in this case, my urge to raise some awareness but also grow facial hair that I would otherwise not dare to attempt. Another great cause, the timing a bit off, but, nonetheless, nothing says you can’t be doing good from multiple fronts. Anyway, this might be a light distraction to some of the doom and gloom on the news for the last few days. If you care to donate (I’ve asked for a lot this post), or learn a bit about men’s health issues please visit http://mobro.co/danthethinkerer

For a quick laugh, here’s my scraggly facial hair from last year:

Until next time, stay safe,

Dan

PS: Here are some resources to help out with Sandy:

Red Cross: www.redcross.org, Call 800-Red-Cross or text the word “Redcross” to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

New York Blood Center: Call 800-933-2566 or visit www.nybloodcenter.org.

Salvation Army: Visit www.salvationarmyusa.org to donate.

Feeding America: To donate visit www.feedingamerica.org or call 800-910-5524.

AmeriCares: To donate, visit www.americares.org.

World Vision: To donate, visit www.worldvision.org.

Save the Children: Visit www.savethechildren.orgto donate.

Samaritan’s Purse is asking for volunteers to help storm victims. To volunteer, visit their website.

This isn’t the NFL. It’s for REAL.

Hi folks, it has been quite a bit since I last shared any of my thoughts (uninterrupted or otherwise). But I found some time to break the silence. I just needed to chime in, and basically preach a little bit. Maybe more a disjointed rant (after re-reading, it’s a bit preachy, with a taste of pleading). It’s about politics (GASP!). Don’t worry I am not going to go on and on about my own political views, that’s none of your damn business! (Or maybe another day) I am shocked with the amount of ridiculous rhetoric being spewed forth by “fans” of both major political parties. I say “fans” because we are treating political affiliation as if it is the same as being a fan of a football team. Undying life long support, regardless of outcome, that is a true fan. Sticking with our team through losing seasons, coaching gaffes, and even out and out team mismanagement, true fans do all of these things. But this isn’t the NFL. It’s for REAL. There is no unwritten rule that once we become affiliated with a political party we are branded for life (this doesn’t even happen with sports, raise your hand my fair weather fans!). I’m perplexed how so many people vote blindly down party lines, even though it might not be in the best interest of their community, their family, their business, or not even for them as an individual. I’m even more perplexed when I hear (or mostly read) us repeating out and out lies, just because that is what our party has been spinning that week. This fanaticism is destroying actual and true political discourse in this country. We could blame the parties themselves for all of the hatred, the finger pointing, the inability to work across party lines, or even their inability to go more than three minutes without lying or exaggerating the truth. That would be easy. Call it a day, politicians suck, they are all cheats. But what about that, they suck, so what then? Keep voting based on all the bullshit? “I’m voting for this guy, because I like the way he lies.” Does that even make sense? We are to blame to for letting this mess snowball out of control. They may be stark raving mad, but instead of putting the rabid beast out of its misery, we allowed the mouth-foaming possum to come in our homes and play with our kids. How about that for personal responsibility? All we have left is ranting and raving from each end of the political spectrum. When people are so deep-rooted in some weird pseudo political gang nothing gets accomplished, the differences are the reason for the hatred, and there will always be differences, and hence continued hatred (think bloods and crips, with less blue and red handkerchiefs, and more penny-loafers).

The cycle can’t be broken until we say its okay to not always be a Democrat, or a Republican (or at the minimum holding them accountable to their rhetoric). Shit, we can be a Libertarians, Greenies, Constitutionalists, or even go back in time and bring back the Whigs, Federalists, and Prohibishionists, it doesn’t matter. The only important facet is that we treat the political spectrum as something that has real effect on our lives, rather than Monday Night Football, just a game with some bragging rights.  Hit the fact checking websites (factcheck.org, politifact.org, even snopes.com has real facts!) listen to what the parties are saying, call them out on their bullshit. Both of them! All of them!

Shouldn’t the American people and the actual policies that effect them be greater than the parties themselves?

Until Next Time,

Dan

PS While reflecting on my own political peacocking, I questioned and doubted my motivation behind my words, and this rant spilled over as a result. In the end I am just calling a spade a spade…that’s all.

(Exhausted) Life and (Fast) Times – 4/16/12

(Fast) Times

Time is an evil bitch.  When you are kid, time appears to not even move at all.  I would stare at the clock in the classroom and would swear it would move backwards just to drive me mad.  Summer was the holy grail.  The  journey was the school year.  Time was a treacherous endless desert.  If you could make it to the end, you would be rewarded with eternal life, drinking from the cup of the covenant.  Or at least two months off from school.   Then one day, you look over your shoulder and you see a deranged zombie chasing you up Hamburger Hill (not a Night of the Living Dead zombie, I’m talking a 28 days later Olympic sprinter).  All you want is for everything to slow down.  That is life as I know it today.  Imagine trying to write a blog running uphill (figuratively of course, who has time for exercise), with a zombie chasing you.  Doubling the lack of writing was another evil bitch, guilt.  Guilt of cheating on the rest of my life.  There were just so many more important things to do (reads “I’m wearing my big boy pants”).   This is partially a lie, back in February I wrote out a bitter, resentful, and tedious diatribe about my favorite sports teams losing, but instead I opted to highlight and delete it, after all, it was bitter and resentful and tedious.  I had some other ideas, but most of them were time sensitive, and won’t make sense to do now; forever to be lost in the confines of my sub-conscience.  Using Twitter and Facebook as mini-self-censored avenues to express some ideas (and irritate the living daylights out of anyone who happens to be my friend) I was able to satiate my writing bug, but not really. Today my head is above water, so before I get sucked back down, I wanted to play blog-catch-up. Here goes nothing.

(Exhausted) Life

I write what I know.  Most of my posts have been about my everyday life, and as of late, my everyday life is about being tired.  Plus, if no clever shit happens to me, there’s no clever shit to write about.  Anyhow.  My brother seems to always be complaining about being exhausted.  If ever I try to relate to him, and share in his exhaustion he scoffs at the idea that I could somehow be even remotely close to his level of tiredness.  My brother has a laborious job working in the shipping and receiving department of a warehouse. When he arrives home he is tired, and rightfully so. Scientifically it’s easy to calculate his effort: work = mass * acceleration * distance (What up Newton?). At the end of the day his work is tangible, he can stand proud and say, “Look here, I have moved these here boxes, from this side of the room to that side, I am man.” Picture Captain Morgan, one foot up on a box, but not so piratey.

Logically I understand why he is tired, but he can’t seem to fathom how I can muster the gall to bring up that I am tired in his presence. How dare I! True, I sit at a desk all day.  How can I even remotely be tired? How can I call that “work”? Do I need to remind myself of Newton’s second law (see above)? I’m essentially a desk jockey. I sit on average seven to ten hours in a given day.  So physically this isn’t all that challenging, if anything this is probably pretty detrimental to my health.  However, what my day lacks in physical labor it makes up tenfold in stress.  In any given day I can make hundreds of decisions.  They vary in importance from absolutely mundane to nuclear meltdown.  Emails, phones, contracts, insurance, sales, bills, vendors, customers, computers, employees, 401ks, and on and on (how George Carlin of me).  It is hard to stay fresh and energetic when Forrest Gump and that Chinese guy are going at it like it’s the World Championship of Ping Pong in my head.  So to say the least, I am constantly working the grey matter in my cranium.  When I am done with my work day, my body aches, my eyes are strained, and I feel completely and utterly spent.  All I want to do is go home and sit down (how ironically awful is that).  It doesn’t make sense, and this is the crux to why sedentary exhaustion is exhausting.  Taxation without representation!  Aches and pains with no physical origins.  I have done basically nothing, but my body feels like I have been hit by a Peterbilt Truck.   So I challenge you, who is more exasperated, the laborer, or the desk jockey?

"When I am done with my work day, my body aches, my eyes are strained, and I feel completely and utterly spent."

Until next time,

Endlessly seeking a chair – Dan

Switching Artistic Gears

I managed to find some spare time this past week, however I also managed to not write (except for this little blurb), as promised myself I would.  Instead I focused my energy on a project I had been meaning to work on for a while.  Typically when people find some spare time they fix that door knob that’s been loosening up,  or they organize their underwear drawer.   I use my spare time in a wiser fashion, I prefer to write, or read, or draw.  It feels productive to me (and that’s all that counts, right?).

This week I spent my lunches and my evenings (after the kiddie was down for the count) drawing.  This was inspired by a photograph I took of my wife and daughter on a chilly morning at our kitchen table sometime in December of 2011.  My wife was showing my daughter the gingerbread house she had made, and the early morning sunshine was coming in through the back sliding door.  I thought it was a cool photo, and thought it to be a really nice picture to reproduce by hand.  Plus I would be able to apply some artistic license with the lighting and such.  So I decided to recreate the moment with my trusty iPad and the amazing Sketchbook Pro app.

Here are my ladies:

I’ll get around to writing soon, (I promise)

Until next time,

Dan

Sorry for the Hiatus

I know I’ve left so many of you holding on desperately for me to update my blog (all jokes), and I too have desperately wanted to share so many thoughts, but alas I’ve been overwhelmed by life.  This has been a serious Hiatus, but it is coming to an end.  I’ll get back to this shortly, I promise, once things settle a bit.  In the meantime please enjoy this little piece of fan art I have been putting together.  I worked on it five minutes at a time sporadically over the last six months (exemplifying my lack of time management skills).

This is Aaron Ramsey, he plays with a certain inalienable passion.  This is my club.  This is Arsenal.

Until next time,

Dan

Arsenal ’til I Die!

You, my friends, are looking at a proud Gooner!  Today, my first article for Arsenal America (the official supporters club here in the states) was posted (or is it published?  damn you internet age!)  If you are a fan of anything I think you may appreciate what it means to write about your fanaticism.  If you are not a fan of anything, we’ll then we can’t relate, my apologies.  I suggest you go out and become a fan of something to fill that void.   Any how, here’s the link, hope you enjoy.

Happy Weekend,

One Happy Gooner,

Dan

Live from Germany: Life and Times – 11/11/11

This blog is brought to you live from Deutschland.  It’s my second time here in five months, and I’m starting to have an affinity for the German culture, the people are warm, and the country is beautiful, but traveling for business is still overrated.  This is the last night and I’m suffering from a bit of insomnia, set in from a bout of homesickness; I’m excited to get home to my wife and daughter.  Blogging is the closet thing I have to ambien.

“Are you willing and able to assist in case of an emergency?”

On the flight in, I paid extra for the additional leg room, on an emergency exit aisle.  This I tell you, is the airlines best racket.  Legroom is king on an eight hour flight, but at what cost?  I thought it was just a hundred bucks or so, but there are implicit costs at work.  Costs that are subtle in nature, but deep in pain.  Immediately upon sitting, I noticed the seat was very stiff.  Extraordinarily extra stiff.  Like sitting on the metal bleachers at Union High School.  This was by no means an issue; I had all the leg room in the world to compensate.  Still with no worries, I couldn’t manage to find the lap tray (bulkhead seats, with no actual seats in front of you).    Go go gadget tray!  The tray folds up and out of the armrest and PRESTO!   A tray, except upon further inspection, it’s more like a second seat belt.  The tray is tucked up against my waist, and barely wide enough to hold two soda cans.  This is perfect for just about nothing aside from hiding your hands so you can adjust (it’s a guy thing).  Even so, this was no big deal, I could just slide my seat back a bit, close my eyes, stretch out my legs, and take a nice long snooze.  I only needed to find that damn button to recline the seat.  I felt like some sort of imbecile, first, unable to find my tray, and now unable to recline my seat.  I even resorted to talking to the passenger next to me (yes, I am still afraid of strangers).  He confirmed it, our seats did not recline.  I went through a good chunk of the flight performing the dozing-off-into-a-wicked-head-nod-whiplash maneuver.  Oh so reminiscent of those early morning college classes, and equally frustrating.  Extra legroom was an option, but apparently sleep was not.  When the flight was over, my legs were numb from the concrete slab doubling as seat cushion, my lower back was pulsating, I had spilled half of my dinner on my lap (a failed tray balancing act that, if successful, would have put Cirque Du Soleil to shame), and I was entering my 29th hour without sleep.  Money well spent.

An Italian, a Greek, a Turk, an American, a Brazilian, an Englishman, and a German walk into a bar.  They all order beer.  

My trip this time around was for a sales conference with one of our German vendors.  They hosted about a dozen of us, from around the world.  It turned out to be the cast of the Dirty Dozen, if instead of being outcast American soldiers, they were Blue Berets (U.N. peacekeepers).  The crew was loud and boisterous and full zingers.  Dinner was the best part day with the dozen.  In German, when a bunch of foreigners go to a pub or restaurant in Germany, they throw you in the deepest part of their establishment, or at least that is where they threw us.  We ate in dungeons nearly every night.  (Those Germans do like their bondage.)

Our First Dungeon Dinner

Early on during the conference, the Englishman (the loudest and de-facto leader of conversation) let me and a few of the other attendees know that football (both American and traditional) were sports for “puffs“, and rugby was the only sport worthy of a man.  He then went on to explain an injury he had acquired playing rugby that dislodged one of his ribs, causing one of his arteries to be pinched, restricting the flow of blood to his brain.  He ignored the chronic fainting, until one day he fainted on his motorcycle.  A true man, worthy of nothing less than what rugby can offer.  He doubled as also a brilliant consumer of booze.  He clearly out drank everyone present, and at one point, was on his “mobile” as he calls it, calling every German he knew to find out the true name of a type schnapps he was referring to as “the black death”.  Oddly appropriate for our dungeon-like surroundings.

Call of Duty: Modern Salesman

On our last night with the group, we went to the German Biathlon training facility in Oberhof, Germany.  The biathlon is a Winter Olympic game that combines intense cross country skiing with rifle shooting.  This sport is inherently German; rigidity, discipline, and control are paramount to success.  We were each given a brief lesson from an Biathlon team coach, and then were asked to battle it out to determine who was the top shooter.  The competition was simple, the targets were 50 meters away.  We would each fire 5 rounds at 11 centimeter diameter targets, and 5 rounds at 4 centimeter diameter targets.  The highest total targets hit, won.  I finished middle of the pack with 5 hits on the big targets, and 1 hit on the small targets.  Considering my only previous rifle experience was playing Call of Duty on XBox, this was well above what I would have expected.  The top four were all from former Soviet satellite countries, and by the looks of it, knew how to handle a weapon, or maybe they play a lot more Call of Duty than I do.  I didn’t want to ask.

Life back at home…

In college, I pledged a fraternity (please leave your prejudgments at the door).  It had been, up until a week before I left for Germany, nearly a decade since I had seen many of my fraternity brothers. The last time I saw most of those clowns (this is a term of endearment) I was buying them beer, shit talking at the thed table (thed (rhymes with head) is an acronym : triangles help everyone drink.  The game is more commonly known throughout the binge drinking world as beer pong), and partaking in the general malarkey of the times.  Regardless of your preconceived notions of fraternity life, real bonds of friendship were formed.   Outside of my “little brother” Mike, I rarely saw anyone after college.  There were a bunch of reasons, but mainly life got in the way.  Several opportunities came up over the years, but I just seemed to never to be able to make it.  Until recently.   Mike planned a gathering at his newly purchased home, and made it a point to harass me into attending, and it worked.  Literally within a minute of arriving at Mike’s house, I had bridged the time gap.  I felt as if I had seen these guys every weekend for the last seven years.  Of course things were different, the clowns I called fraternity brothers were also tripping all over life; the same growing up I was undergoing.  They were the college guys I remembered, but without being college guys, and vice versa.  At the core, we remained friends, brothers even.  It was nice to be reminded that the real bonds of friendship have no definition of time.

To quote the great words of my little brother Mike who in turn is mimicking Batman’s wise butler Alfred, “Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn (*with their friends).”

*Alfred doesn’t actually say, “with their friends,” but one can only assume that it was implied.  I mean, he must certainly be talking about the sitting around a bonfire, shooting the shit…right?

Until next time,

Dan

Best Protect Ya Neck: Life and Times – 9/21/11

Listening to Protect Ya Neck by the Wu-Tang Clan (“The Wu” for short) on my way home from work last week, and nearly twenty years after this track was released I finally unlocked the metaphorical wizardry of the lyrics  (for the quick and narrow, The Wu are an ensemble of rappers, arguably the greatest rap group of all time).  As legend has it, The Wu were inspired to write this song by their experience on the mean streets of New York City, mainly Staten Island.  The rappers are known by many names, but collectively they took on the moniker of The Killer Bees (Killa Beez to be exact), the macho posturing of the nickname was clear and present; killer bees are assassins in disguise, small and innocent in appearance, but vicious in nature.   But The Wu are too clever for this – that is the low hanging fruit for the simple minded – they went for the triple lindy of rap, the double entendre!  Spoiler Alert!  The Killer Bees is not only a moniker for a group of gentleman with an appetite for street justice, but rather a second deeper metaphor for another innocent in appearance and vicious in nature creature…the elusive small child.

It took me almost twenty years to figure it out because I had no frame of reference.  You have no clue how innocently violent a child can be, until you get a hard driven head butt to the bridge of the nose at 3:27 in the morning.  This kind of rude awakening starts to condition you.  I am a student of the art of “protecting ya neck”, and the training has been merciless.  For example,  we will occasionally let our our daughter sleep in our bed when she’s having a really rough night (teething, ear ache, etc).  This is a ploy of course.  After a little soothing, she falls asleep between my wife and I.  In my head I am saying, “SUCCESS!  She’s back asleep, a few more minutes and I’ll put her back in her crib.”  As my premature sense of accomplishment starts to settle in, I close my eyes and begin to relax and SMACK!  I get a round house open hand smack square across my face.  A bullwhip in the darkness.  Lesson, always protect yourself, even in the comfort of your bed.  The lessons keep on coming; pushing her on the our swing set I had an incoming phone call, I looked down and peaked at my phone and KABLAM!  Front kick to the johnson, and on the return swing another to the temple.  Lesson, never take your eyes off your enemy.    This is life’s incredibly amazing and cruel sense of humor, it’s ability to constantly reverse the roles.  My child is the Benjamin Button Master Yoda of self defense, and I am just her humble student.  She doesn’t know this of course, because she is just this little killer bee, abiding by the laws of nature, kicking her dad’s ass.  To all you new parents out there, you best protect ya neck!

I swear, they are rapping about babies!

Until next time,

Dan

All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt

I’m back from Germany! (Like a month ago now)  The trip was business motivated, and most of my days were spent talking it up with German vendors and driving, I did however get a chance to experience some of beautiful Germany.  It was overall a successful trip (both professionally and personally), but I’m still glad to be home.  A great part of visiting new places is getting to share those stories with folks back home.  Its like a tasting menu, you get to sample the best of what they have to offer, and then you go home and tell your friends about each course (if you do that sort of thing, if not, bad analogy).

Speaking of food, some people when traveling have concerns about being able to eat the local cuisine, and more importantly “can I get fries with that.”  Over the last few years my taste buds have matured (aka died off) so I’ve become more open to new foods, so I wasn’t too scared about trying German food.   Off the top of my head I figured there would be a lot of fried food, pork, sausage, and beer.  I was mostly right.  There was definitely a lot of beer, there is something like 500 breweries in Germany, every town you visit has a local brew.  I tried to sample the local pislner and weizen (wheat) at each destination.  The beer was overall outstanding, although there was one beer that after the first sip, I made the awful super bitter beer face, full head shake to boot.  That was the only super bitter I had and it still went down like the rest!  I enjoyed a variety of local foods; pretzels (sliced down the middle with butter), spaetzle, schnitzel (pork and veal), rump steak, Thuringer rostbratwurst (roadside hotdog, simply incredible), and Germanized Tex-Mex (yes, that’s right, awful).  Throw in some airplane food on the way in and out, and I easily put on five pounds.

A week before I left for Germany I started reading Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut.  The book has been on my to read list for a while, even though I had no clue what it was about.  I happened to stumble across it on iBooks (unsolicited plug) and decided now was the time to read it.  coincidentally the book was about a guy who is “unstuck in time” (Lost fans – sound familiar), revisiting various life experiences, including his time as a G.I. in Nazi Germany during World War II.  I’m not sure if the book had anything to do with it, or the amount of WWII movies and games I’ve consumed over the years, but when driving the German countryside I couldn’t help but imagine hordes of troops marching across the rolling hills.  Every tree lined road we took – a perfect ambush setting, every elegant bell tower hovering above the town – a bullet riddled sniper’s nest.  A mere 65 years ago, my imaginations would have most likely been close to the real thing.  It was a bit chilling, but also endearing to know how far this country has grown since that dark period.

About a quarter of my time in Germany was spent driving.  Behind the wheel is where you really learn about a culture, and the Germans are no exception.  They are relentless law abiders!  We were warned by our Germany friends on day one, “You must follow the rules of the road or else!”  (To be read as if spoken by East German border patrol, circa, 1982)  We have all heard of the speed limitlessness of the Autobahn, the German highway system, and many, including me, have wished to one day drive on this speedster’s dreamscape.  The Autobahn provides this odd mix of civility and aggression.  The general rules are exactly like they are in America, except they actually follow them.  For all of you that might have forgotten some of these rules, here’s a quick recap (with a German exception): First and foremost, the most important driving aspect in Germany and also the major exception; if no speed is posted (which is common outside of densely populated areas), there is no speed limit.  You must always keep to the right, unless you are overtaking another car, in which case you can only overtake to the left (contrary to driving in the NY/NJ metro area where its every man, woman, and bike messenger for themselves).  On a typical three lane highway, the furthest right lane is filled with tractor trailers and other large vehicles.  The middle lane is for your regular drivers.  The furthest left lane is for passing, and for the aggressive pedal pinned to the floorboard types (who rightfully so are in the left lane because they are always passing someone). You actually forget about the no speed limit thing after driving for a little bit, it becomes a non-issue, and this unanticipated civility between drivers occurs (I guess weird to me, since this doesn’t exist where I live), with one exception, the assholes permanently in the left lane.  Now, technically the drivers that pin their foot on the pedal e are within the rules of the game, but it can cause a bit of an issue.

Here is an example that kept repeating itself several times during our travels: We are coasting along at 150kph (about 93 mph), a nice pace, most cars are doing about the same, but every once in a while I come up to a car that is moving slower.  Following the general guidelines, I proceed to pass on the left.  As normal, I take a look in the mirror, and there is only a tiny speck, way back, at least half a mile back.  I throw my blinker on, giving my puny rental car as much gas as she can take, and start to ease into the left lane.  For safety sake, I  check my mirror again, and now, that tiny speck looks a lot like a Fiat or Alfa Romeo or Citroen (or another European brand), closing in on me, as if the license plate was an out of control eye exam chart, creeping closer and closer.  SHIT! I quickly get back to the middle lane just in time for the raging car to whiz by us.  No clue how fast they were passing us, but it was significantly more than 93 mph.  For all the civility exhibited in the right two lanes, all bets were off once you crossed into that left lane.  Basically, the feeling was that you shouldn’t dare cross into the left lane, unless you were ready to put it all on the line.

With all the driving done, we were able to see a nice chunk of Germany.   We drove from Hanover in the north, to the southeast into former East Germany and then southwest to Frankfurt in central Germany.  Via car we were able to see Roman aqueducts, ancient castles, and Statsi (East German KGB) spying posts.  We also learned about Ausfahrt (pretty much pronounced ows-fart).  Quite possibly the largest, yet least known city in all of Germany.    Throughout our travels, we constantly saw signs pointing to Ausfahrt, it literally felt like every exit indicated that was the way to Ausfahrt, and technically, it could have been.  We drove approximately 1,000 kilometers in a semi-circle route.  It was possible that between Hanover and Frankfurt sat Ausfahrt. Technically.  Neither one of us knew German (which is now clearly evident, if you do speak German).  I took it in high school, for a year, and I barely remember anything past the numbers and some simple greetings.   With the powers of context, common sense, and a mountain of hours playing World War II first person shooter video games, I was able to crack the mystery of Ausfahrt.  In World War II games you here the Germans yell all sorts of stuff, and one word in particular came to mind when looking at that sign, AUS!  As in, “Get aus of here you dirty American!”  As you have probably already figured a minute ago, Ausfahrt is not a massive town no one outside of Germany has ever heard of it.  It’s just simply the exit  (aus = out, fahrt = drive, ride, run; literally drive out).  My co-worker took about 6 days to work up the courage to ask me about the town of Ausfahrt, on the last leg of the driving.  I told him it was a big town in the center of Germany, even more of a hub than Frankfurt!*

Now I’m back home enjoying the summer with my family!  Until next time,

Dan

Travel side note – This didn’t really fit in anywhere in the blog, but I wanted to share.  Now that everyone has their own little TV when flying, at times you can appear to be a total pervert when you are watching a movie with some mild nudity or sexual content.  Without exception, the person next to you looks over at the exact  time to see the one scene that might be out of a Skin-a-max late night movie.  To the creepy old guy sitting next to me – For the record, I was watching Hall Pass, a comedy, so stop whispering to your wife about the perv sitting next to you!

*Update after writing this – Apparently the whole Ausfahrt thing is not original to me (bummer).  If you search the web you’ll discover that Ausfahrt has been perplexing American’s for decades.

Writer’s (un)Block

Not much has changed since the last post, I’m still very busy, but mostly uneventful busy (how oxymoronic).  I keep coming up with neat little ideas and/or taglines to write about, but then realize I don’t have more than a paragraph, or for most,  a few sentences on the topic.   I started to accumulate these blurbs over the past few weeks, unable to turn them into full-fledged blog posts – but what I lack in ability, I make up in short-cut-titude.

Here is basically my half-thoughts (or small full thoughts), each a sort of mini-blog; individually to long to be tweeted but too short for a single blog post (or so I thought when originally writing this) but strung together, a cheap way to share a bunch of brilliantly idiotic and unrelated premises

(in no particular order):

Hollywood is the Land of Enter-tear-ment:  We (my wife and I) recently watched Life As We Know It, a movie about how two single people who become the legal guardians of a one year old girl.  She was the daughter of their respective best friends who were tragically killed in a car accident.   Nothing about this movie is all that good, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.  While watching the movie, I was scratching my head, trying to figure out how a movie that was such a miserably acted, poorly written, excuse for entertainment got made.  And suddenly, one misty eye later, I realized the only strength this movie had, the ability to pull on the heart-strings of parents. (Okay so my blog posts seem to always focus on parenting and my/our trials and tribulations with being parents, but it’s a big part of my life and takes up a big portion of my consciousness, if you can’t relate, sorry, if you don’t care, too bad.)  I am not ashamed to admit it, when the movie takes the expect turn, and the parents die, in an under-described freak flipped car accident, I was holding back some serious moisture.  Let me explain: I relate to movies, actually that’s putting it lightly.  Submerge might actually be a better word.  I submerge myself in movies. This submersion has two direct effects, one, I can’t watch horror movies (I’m so submerged, in my mind the only proper response is just get murdered to death, so I can surface back to reality), two, when a movie is really good and it goes dark side, I can feel that.  HOWEVER, my ethos has changed, I’m not living in the pre-parental world where these effects were proven time and again.  I’m living in a post-apocalyptic world (I’m now a father).   Nothing is as it seems!  Danger is lurking everywhere, every kitchen cabinet is a murderer, every stairway is a criminal, every wall socket is an electric chair.   I’m different now (minus the fact that I still can’t watch horror movies).  My movie experience has been tweaked, a movie no longer has to be really good to move me, it just has to mess with my newly altered fatherly brain.  So that explains me, but for the life of me I still don’t understand why these movies are made.  I can only assume the person that green-lights these movies is both a parent, and a masochist (with a particular deviancy towards tears).

Revenge of Me (the Nerds):  What does it mean to be a nerd, or at least a nerd today?  The term nerd has evolved from the early eighties Revenge of the Nerds imagery.  Well, it has evolved for me at least, and what I envision being a nerd (and as I’m sure you guessed, how I identify with nerd culture).  The point-dexter, pocket-protector nerd is as dated an image as a house calling doctor and his bag of life saving tricks.  Nerds today look and act as if they were normal members of society, in fact, they are normal members of society.  Nerd has taken on a new life, breaking down the walls enclosing that small subset of introverts.  Nerd, to me, means to show a super focus on a topic, or have a love of something.  E.G. (not I.E., I looked it up and have been using it wrong quite a bit): “His E.R.A. has hovered around 2.8 for the last few years (Other guy – “Really I thought it was higher than that?”), dude why do you doubt me, I’m a total baseball nerd!”  I overheard this the other day at lunch between two cops.  These two cops could have easily been extras in Revenge of the Nerds, but not as geeky Lambdas, but as football playing, nerd tormenting Alpha-Betas.  Nerds are everywhere!  Here are few examples of how traditional nerddom has become mainstream:  Comic-Con, endless superhero movies (Thor, Ironman, X-Men, Batman, Green Lantern, etc), video games (oh you don’t play video games?  then put down Angry Birds and Words with Friends), and pretty much all things electronic – smart phones, laptops, tablets, and computers in general.  Me personally, I enjoy a good mix of traditional and non-traditional nerddom, just enough so to be consider a nerd-of-all-trades.

Unreal Housewife of New Jersey:  I recently met Dina Manzo, a Real Housewife of New Jersey (from the infamous show of the plural same name), and she was pleasantly a nice, courteous, and down to earth person.  As we do (or I do, I can’t speak for ALL of you), we can at times make prejudgments with very little information in hand, it’s an unfortunate natural instinct.  I have seen a few episodes of the show, you know the good ones, when shit is getting out of control.  These scenes were all I had to go by for any of the housewives, the screaming, yelling, foul-mouthed, television goodness.  Cover, judge, book, me.  I think you can piece together the proverb.  I didn’t get to spend any real amount of time talking to her, she was busy running around making sure my brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s wedding was going off without a hitch (this is a world of another blog, which I’m not sure I’m even  legally allowed to write about, so check it out this Fall on HGTV.)   I can’t write it any other way, she was just a really nice person (and I didn’t expect it, so shame on me).  From my view, it appeared as if she presented herself  as part of the team, not as the “talent”, getting involved with the production.  I even saw her cleaning up at the end of the night.  But most importantly, she complimented our daughter on her cuteness (note to everyone, want to make me like you, talk up my daughter 🙂 (yes that is an emoticon, its my party, and I’ll do what I want to)).  (I know I’m a parenthetical machine, my apologies for the over use and for the need of a math degree to figure out the order of operations on that last one.)

Check-in’s or Rob-me’s?:  I’m not sure I understand this new fad (although it might not be a fad, it might be here to stay) about “checking in” to places on the Internet?  I understand how it works, but I don’t understand why people do it.  As things are progressing I can assume the only logical next step will be to check into individual rooms of our homes on Facebook or Foursquare,  “I just checked into the bathroom, and in case you were wondering, I’m just peeing, no deuces today.”  Before you start yelling hypocrite at your screen, let me beat you too it.  Dan – you are a hypocrite!  Yes, I have, and regularly use Facebook, and yes, I have this here blog, where I divulge all sorts of intricate details about my life.  Yes, I probably over share.  But as much as I might post a useless funny video, or rant about my miserable soccer team, I am sharing at the very minimum a thought or idea.  Checking-in seems so devoid of any real value (to me). Now if I were a dastardly fellow, this information could be plenty useful.  When you check into the Football Hall of Fame, in Canton, Ohio, I know you are definitely not at your home in New Jersey.  Thank you for the valuable intel, and that lovely 52″ LCD you have.  What I would really like to do would be to visit their home when they are out, and just rearrange all the furniture, switch around the contents of drawers and cabinets, change alarm clock settings, even change the settings on their Kuerig coffee machine, but leave no trace of entry, and just leave.  No note, no nothing.  Just total mind fuckery.  A real brain rattler.  So basically what I’m looking for is valid reasons why so many people are doing this, why do we share our coordinates?  Why aid and abet Big Brother?  He is already watching?  Can someone please explain!

Eating Lunch with Dale Carnegie:  I work in a small office, and no one really goes out to lunch.  When I don’t brown bag it, I end up going out and grabbing lunch on my own.  This would bum some people out, but I enjoy alone time, it gives me a chance to clear my head, listen to a podcast, or get in some reading.    There is this small sushi restaurant by work, it is mainly bar style seating and lends itself perfectly to the table for one crowd.  Just last week, I was sitting at the bar near the register, book in one hand, dynamite roll in the other (chopsticking, of course, no barehands), and one of the patrons was standing there waiting to pay for a pickup order.  I had the feeling she was staring at me, you know that odd psychic ability we all have, knowing someone has their eyes upon you.  That kind of feeling is hard to ignore, so I slowly turn to my side, to verify what my body already knew.  She was hardcore gawking, but not in a undressing me with her eyes type of gawking.  She had a sadness in her look, a look of pity.  The glance was only an instant, and I quickly shrugged it off, returning to my book and my sushi.    I ended up  finishing my lunch without giving it another thought.  As I was starting to leave, I stood up and reach for my book, now closed, cover facing up.  I remember the look of pity I had received fifteen minutes prior,  and the connection was made.  Back in January I attended a multi-week Dale Carnegie sales training seminar (If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend the classes), and as part of the class we were given a few Dale Carnegie books to read on our own time .  One of the books is the famous, How to Win Friends, and Influence People.  This is the book that must have inspired the movie Inception.  It is essentially the guidebook on how to incept someone in the real world (for those unfamiliar with the film, incepting would be act of planting an idea in someone, so as if to have them believe it is their own original idea.  In the movie they literally go into a persons subconscious.  The book I was read, only uses words, boring).  This is my current lunch time reading, and thus far has done a great job at reinforcing techniques taught in the sales class.  So there I was sitting at a restaurant by myself, reading a book, that within the title read, How to Win Friends.  To this woman, I was the picture of loneliness, just me and Mr. Dale Carnegie.  Perception is a crazy beast (and so is Inception).

This wraps up the longest post I couldn’t have written unless I was trying to write a short post.  What started as an attempt to half-ass a blog post, end up dislodging my writer’s block (Interesting thought: What is it called when a non-writer, gets writer’s block? Normal?  I don’t really consider myself a true writer, just a sharer of thoughts).  As I started writing each mini-post, I kept adding more info to each.  Sorry to overwhelm you with so many different ideas and stories as possible.  I thought about saving a few of these ideas for later posts, but it felt like cheating, so I kept them all in.  Hope you enjoyed the ride!

Until next time,

Dan

Also, all comments are welcome, even the dirty truth.