Todd Andrews Comedy Blog

Trip to Europe

2010-02-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

In January, I went to Europe for a week for my day job. I hate saying the word “day job” because it minimizes what I do for a living. Even though the main purpose for this blog is for my “comedy” site, I have to recognize that comedy is not my main source of income. Comedy is not what allows me to own a house, save for retirement and have my wife raise my child at home. My “day job” is my main priority when it comes to working, comedy is secondary, but that does not stop me from still doing all that I can to achieve the perfect balance of the two (which I think I do quite well).

Though a lot of people do not get to do cool things at their job, I am sometimes fortunate to be able to travel (which I actually like). I know a lot of people hate to travel and rarely do you have any time (or energy) to enjoy where you are at, but I still kind of enjoy it even though it can be a bit of a whirlwind. They only thing I don’t like is being away from Holly and Quinlan for a week, but it does not happen all THAT much so it is OK.

I would like to use this space to make some observations of what I saw in Europe without divulging any details of my day job activities:

Amsterdam

A co-worker and I left on Saturday evening on a direct flight to Amsterdam. I know that a lot of people will say “Ooooooh” at the mere mention of Amsterdam as it has quite a reputation. To be honest, all the things that make people say “oooooh” about it are the kind of things that should make a college kid say that. Not a 35 year old man.

We landed at around 11:30 a.m. local time on Sunday morning. The key to traveling to Europe is to stay awake your first day over there. We found our hotel and planned to drop our bags off and walk around all afternoon. Since we were not allowed to check in, we left the bags and checked out the sites. At first glance, it seemed like any old European city. Older buildings, a little dirty, small cars, LOTS of bicycles and a fair amount of graffiti (the graffiti is something that seems to be more prevalent over than here). We do have it in our bigger cities, especially in the “less than desirable” areas, but it seems to be more in the open out there in places that are not that bad.

Our first goal was to find a place to get a coffee so we can stay awake. We walk a few blocks from our hotel and look for signs for a coffee shop. We find an alleyway that has a sign leading to a “coffee shop.” We find it and we walk in. The first odd thing we notice is that we need to walk downstairs to get to it (when was the time you went into a basement to get a cup of coffee?). As we get to the bottom, the smell in the air changes and I see a glassed in area where there are a bunch of people sparking up. Then I look to the right and see a bar-like area with a bunch of jars with various marijuana buds in them, apparently there are 10+ types of pot you can buy (I didn’t know that many existed). We turned right around and scurried out of the bar for fear that our clothes would smell like pot and we did not want that smell getting onto our clothes in our suitcase and setting the dogs wild in the airport. We then spent the next 20 minutes going to “coffee shops” to find out that they do not sell coffee at any of these places. We eventually found a place called the “Coffee Company” that actually sold coffee and espresso drinks. So a word to the wise for those of you heading to Amsterdam, if you want a coffee look for “companies” and not “shops.”

These coffee shops were everywhere! It seemed like every corner had one, or the regular looking bars had an area on another level where people could go to smoke pot. Usually you could smell it at various intervals out on the street walking around. The funny thing about these places is that when you saw people going in or out of the shops, you were never surprised on what they looked like. If you were to close your eyes and imagine the stereotypical potheads, you would imagine all the people we saw walking in and out of these places. Never did we see someone in a suit, or a clean cut hairdo, or a pierceless face.

We also checked out the red light district while we were there. Our curiosity got the best of us, I have to admit. Fortunately, since it was Sunday afternoon, it was pretty quiet (I had heard that it can get pretty mental on a weekend night). I had heard that the prostitutes are all on one street and there are behind a glass window of a townhouse. If you wanted one, you could just walk into the adjacent door and do whatever they had on the menu. We walk down the street and it looks like just any other street, nothing special. We walk a little ways without seeing anything and I was just chitchatting with my co-worker. Then I got startled because there was a loud knocking sound next to my left ear. I jumped a little and looked and there was one of the famous windows I had heard about. But behind the window was not a pretty little lady. It was a 50+ year old woman who looked she had been through hell and back. She was showing a little of her saggy cleavage, trying to stand in a seductive pose and doing the “come here” gesture with her finger. I felt like I was at Valley Scare during Halloween. She was hideous and this was the window that was supposed to be your “warm up” for the rest of the street. The next several windows we saw were not all that much better. We could not help but wonder what kind of human being would be willing to go to the other side of the window. Maybe someone who spent all morning in a coffee shop. It is still debatable on whether the last window we saw had an attractive woman or not in it. I think we may have fallen in to the trap of her being “Sunday Afternoon Amsterdam Hot.” Anywhere else and she is not attractive, after seeing the hideous carnival or whores before her, she seemed OK.

Sex is much more open in Amsterdam too. It seemed that all the stores were closed (apparently, they are respectful to the religious folks seeing that it is day of Sabbath). It didn’t matter though because the sex shops have everything right out in the window that they offer. There was no dark glass or censored items in the window, the most hardcore stuff they had to offer were right there in the window. We saw 6 inch wide dildos. Yes, that is right they were not 6 inches LONG, they were 6 inches WIDE. I have no clue what kind of human could handle this. It actually frightened me quite a bit. So much that I had a nightmare later that night that a giant dildo was coming to kill me. The other highlight of the windows was the life sized rubber fist. All I could think of was the joke by Doug Stanhope about these; “is this so you can fist yourself and still have the ability to defend yourself in a fight.” What an awful sight, I almost wished I didn’t see it. Though, I did catch myself wondering if a visitor ever bought one and then got caught with it at the airport. I would pay big money to be behind this person in the security line listening to him/her describe what it is and why they have it with them.

I don’t even want to describe what the video stores had in their windows. Let me just put it this way, think of the most wrong possible sexual act you could see on video…..I bet it was right there in the window for sale. Again, I saw things that will take a while to get out of my brain.

The best sales pitch that I ever heard though was in the Red Light District. Out there, they have live sex shows. You pay money to go watch other people have sex in person. That sure does not sound appealing to me, especially with the saggy wildebeests we saw in the windows. So we would walk by them without much of a glance. The last one we walked by though had some aggressive salesmen out front. There were three guys acting like carnies trying to get us to come into the place. Saying things like “Hey, we have a great show,” “you have to see this, it is fantastic,” “we can cut you a great deal,” and “you don’t know what you are missing.” Of course, none of this worked and we continued to walk by without giving them any attention. The last guy though was absolutely flabbergasted that we were not interested in watching other chubby people have sex. As we are about to clear the front of the entranceway, he just yells out in amazement, “Guys, there’s live fucking going on in here!!” As if we were going to walk around and go, “Oh, well since you put it that way, I guess we will check it out.” After the guy yelled it out to us, my co-worker just looks at me and says, “That is easily the best sales pitch I have ever heard.” It was the theme of the week for us. Anytime someone tried to sell us something, we would just look at each other and say, “But there’s live fucking here.”

Out of all the weird things I saw there, I saved the worst thing for the end of the night. We found a bar that had satellite broadcasts of virtually every major sporting event in the world. We had dinner and watched the Patriots playoff game with a table of people from Baltimore at the table next to us. I don’t want to get into Patriots talk right now (the wound is still fresh), but I can say that I probably would have rather been beaten by the rubber fist than to watch that awful display by my Patriots.

The hotel we stayed in was pretty questionable. My room was no bigger than my office at work and the shower head was literally right in front of the toilet. I am not lying when I say that you could shower and shit at the same time. I guess they are all about efficiency in Amsterdam. They also had people coming in at one in the morning screaming and yelling, I guess people still party on Sunday Nights out there.

In the end, Amsterdam was neat to see but I would not want to spend an extended period of time there. Not my scene, although the canals could be pretty during the summer……maybe the whores are too.

Belgium

The next day we drove down to Belgium. The one thing that stood out in Belgium was all of the speed cameras they had on the roads. It seemed like you could not go more than a few miles without seeing a speed camera. This is where they measure how fast you are going and then can mail you a $200 ticket if you exceed the relatively low speed limit. There is no need to hire a cop or worry about only fining a few speeders. Belgium is able to fine ALL the speeders, not just a selective bunch. It also eliminates the ability to pay for a cop to sit on the side of the road. What better way to make sure you can tax more of your citizens indirectly with more efficiency? What is tough is that there is no tolerance at all. So what if you always drive safe, but one day you space out and go 45 in a 40 zone? Tough cookies, you get nailed for a $200 ticket. No chance of a cop giving you a break, you are paying the fine whether you agree with it or not.

This stuff kind of scares me because I could see it being used over here. I realized it when I mentioned it to someone in Europe and their response was, “Yes, but it is a wonderful source of revenue.” That was his excuse for it being OK; it creates more money for the government. Seeing as how we as a country (both at the Federal and the local level) can’t seem to keep our spending below the amount of money we bring in they will need to get creative on how they can get more money from the citizens. What better way to do it and it will be supported by the people who think they never speed (even though everyone slips up once in a while)? Maybe they can reduce the speed limits if they are not bringing in enough money. It is just a slippery slope to enter into. It is also annoying because there are so many roads out there that have a speed limit to low. If you have ever drive from Minneapolis to Fargo, you will know that there is no reason for there being a speed limit on those roads. They are empty and mostly straight and BORING.

The cool thing in Belgium was the real Belgium waffles in Brussels. Not the ones in an American hotel lobby. We ordered on that was from a window at the side of a building (you could not order one “for here”; they were all “to go.” Absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to try one again.

The interesting thing about Brussels is how much pride they have for a little boy peeing in public. They have a fountain in downtown of a kid peeing. This one statue of a kid peeing is a souvenir phenomenon. All the souvenir shops sell little figurines that you could buy. I was trying to find something to bring back to Quinlan, but I could not imagine bringing this back in my luggage and getting caught in customs by someone who is not aware of this statue. How creepy would it be to find a guy with a statue of a little boy holding his junk? That is something from the extras in the To Catch a Predator’s Greatest Hits DVD.

One last funny thing we had to do twice in Belgium. We had to pay to take a leak; once in a semi-nice restaurant/bar and the other in the train station. Is Belgium hurting that much for cash that they need to squeeze people for speeding and peeing? How can you flaunt your peeing boy in town center, but make you pay to pee yourself? Why can a 5 year old pee 24 hours a day in public, but I have to pay a Euro to pee inside? Strange company.

Germany

We took a high speed to Germany. I had never been on one of those. They were kind of cool because you are going up to 120 mph. It doesn’t really feel like you are going all that fast and it is pretty smooth. It is also cool to see the countryside which is pretty. We did see the European versions of trailer parks. To be honest, they make trailer parks look like gated communities. They are unbelievably small and crappy. Really amazing to see people living like that and it makes me think that poor people (and really anyone else) in America do not really know what it is like to be poor in another country. There are people in the States with larger bathrooms than these whole shacks were.

The first city we visited was Mannheim. Very unimpressive of a city. It was pretty industrial and not much “cool stuff” to see, not that we really had any time to see anything because the train shows up at 7 at night. We went out to see if we could get a bite to eat of “traditional German food.” As we are walking down their main road, there are all kinds of typical stores along the road. There is a pharmacy, clothing store, convenience store, restaurant, etc. We end up walking by a sex shop, right in the middle of all the normal stores, and this is what they have right in the window:

Yep, that my friends is a Dog Gimp mask. Did any of you know that these even existed? Now, I have not ventured into the S&M world (maybe that will change when I get into my 50’s), but who would this be for? Has the traditional gimp mask gone so far out of style that we need to bring the doggy version of it? How different would have that basement scene been in Pulp Fiction been had the dude in the chest come out wearing one of these? That may have been more disturbing than what Zed was doing to poor Marcellus Wallace on the other side of the door……..alright, may not “more” disturbing but in the ball park. I can’t even imagine how you propose this to your partner. Can you imagine thinking that you have met the love of your life, you think you could spend the rest of your life with this person and they yank this from under the bed and ask you to try it out. How do you not launch yourself out of the window right then and there? The one thing that I do love about this mask though is it is a weapon for me down the road for when a German makes it sound like us Americans are dumb, ignorant sub humans. I can show them this picture and say, “Yeah, you have these in your store fronts on your main street. Eat that, you pervs!!!”

The rest of my trip to Germany was not all that exciting. We went to Gottingen where we had dinner and then got walked around the town later that evening. Very nice city with a ton of history……but something happened to me. Something in the city made me go back to my hotel room and puke and crap my eyeballs out all night. What a wonderful thing to do in a foreign county. It was so bad; I had to blow off my meeting the next day due to my inability to even hold down water and being totally dehydrated. I really do not think I have puked in over 10 years. The good thing was it only last that night and morning, it went away and I was able to eat a half a burger later that night without incident. The tough thing was watching the other guys with me have a beer, it made me want to yak again.

I was pretty fired up to head home the next day. I wanted to get something for Quinlan in the Frankfurt airport (as I had no time to get something anywhere else). I knew I would get raped on the price of something, but whatever it is nice to have something from another country for him. After we went through the security check point, I went to the Duty Free shop right by the gate. They had a cute snow globe that said Germany on it. It was 10 Euros ($15), so it was grossly overpriced, but what the heck.

I walk to the gate to get onto the plane. The girl that checks our carry on asks what I have, I tell her a snow globe and she says OK. We fly all the way to Detroit and I have to go through customs. Two separate guys ask me if I bought anything in Europe and I say a snow globe, no problem carry on. I grab my big suitcase and get it checked back in for the next flight. When I go through the next security check point (after my suitcase is gone), they stop me and ask if I have a snow globe. I say yes and they say it is not allowed onto the plane because it is over 3 ounces. Are you shitting me? I try to be polite with the guy and say, “but I bought this at the airport right by the gate. Why would they sell me something right at the entrance of the plane that I could not bring onto the plane?” Then this nightmare of a woman, who weighed 250 pounds in a uniform made for a person that is 200 pounds, comes up and yells at me “you need to either throw that out or check into your main luggage.” I said the luggage has already checked in and two of your customs agents let me walk on with the globe after I told each of them what I have. She said she did not care and that I need decide what to do with it as I am holding up the line. I asked how do I check it in, she said “you need to put it in a box; I don’t have a box do you?” Now she knows that I don’t have a box and I am stuck throwing this out. I used an F-bomb or two and said I guess I have to throw it out. My 2 year old thanks you for saving us all from a snow globe. I swear that I was inches from calling her the “c-word.” If it wasn’t for the fear of being taken away in cuffs, I would have fired it out because she was out of hand. My typing is giving it no justice on how awful this “lady” was.

It is good to know that our security is saving our skies from snow globes, but letting dudes in with explosives in their underwear. I am just trying to figure out what the hell a terrorist will do with a snow globe. Do they break into the cockpit and then shake it in front of the pilots eyes until he says, “Aw, isn’t it beautiful?” and then veers the plane into the ocean. Stupid.

Well, that was the summary of my trip to Europe. I always seem to learn something new every time I go. There is more that I am sure I am forgetting, but this has gotten long enough of a blog. No one is probably reading this anyways.

Random Thoughts

2009-01-11T07:06:00.000-08:00

Cold Weather

So far it has been a pretty cold start to the winter here in the Glorious Midwest. Many mornings I am heading to work with the temperature below zero or in the single digits. Many days the high is staying in the low digits and there have already been a few below zero. I never thought I would become acclimated to this weather out here. When it reaches 20, I am actually saying things like, “Beautiful day, huh?” In Boston when it was 20, I would say insightful things like, “this blows.” There was even one day last month when the temperature went into the 30’s. I contemplated wearing shorts that day.

My favorite example of getting used to living out here was last year on the day of the NFL Conference Championship games. The Patriots were facing the Chargers in New England and the Packers were facing the Giants in Green Bay. The temperature in Wisconsin was about -5 with a wind chill in the -20’s. I talked to my buddy Matty in Massachusetts. He told me he was on the way to the game in New England. I told him that I was jealous but he complained that the game would suck. I asked why and he said he was going to end up freezing his ass off. I asked how cold it was and he told me 25 degrees. My first thought was, “25 degrees……above zero???? You pussy.” That was when I knew I had become a Midwesterner.

Quinlan

Quinlan is getting big and smart so fast it is blowing me away. He is just under 21 months old and I cannot believe he will be two in April. People tell you that it goes by fast, but I didn’t realize it would be THIS fast. He is still a little guy, but he seems to be getting taller. He hasn’t been officially measured yet, but I think he will be in the normal range for height and will be starting to catch-up on his weight.

He is not talking clearly yet, but he is talking a lot. We usually have no clue what he is saying except for a few one word statements like truck, tractor, football, ball, cat, Da-Da and Ma-Ma. A lot of time he will look at you and say a million words and say it very seriously, but we have no clue what he is trying to say. Whatever it is, he is very passionate about it.

He has two personalities, one at home and one in public. At home he is very silly and chatty. He will giggle, act goofy and talk a ton. Out in front of people, he is very reserved and quiet. Everyone thinks he is so serious, but at home we know he is a goofball. He isn’t scared of people, but it is like he is just soaking it all in rather than try to fit right in. He is like Dad in that way, if I am in an environment that I am not familiar with, I tend to be quiet. If I know a good amount of the people there, I am my typical idiot self.

He is totally addicted to trucks and tractors. When a truck drives by he will say, “Ohhhhh…..TRUCK!!!” Or he will make the “Vroom Vroom” sound. Same thing goes with tractors. His favorite toys at Christmas were the tractors we bought him. His favorite book to read at night is the truck and tractor book. He has somehow become a Wisconsin guy right before my eyes. I am scared that he is going to grow a mullet and chew Copenhagen without spitting. God, I hope he does not become a Packer fan too.

Football

It is so odd to be watching playoff football without the Patriots in it. This is a first in a long time. They got hosed in that they won 11 games, yet they miss the playoffs. I finally know what it is like to be a Packer fan. The Patriots needed Favre to win against the Dolphins in week 17 for the Patriots to get in, but of course he stunk it up. Nothing like having your post season depends on an over-rated aging QB. In the end, I do not think they would have gone far in the playoffs. They would have been matched up against the Ravens who have a great defense. While Cassel has done very well this year, he has struggled against the great defenses. I think the Ravens would have knocked them out anyways.

Now that we are in the 2nd week of the post season (as of this writing the Ravens have knocked off the Titans), I am not sure who I want to go all the way. My 1st choice would be the Steelers. I have always liked them and my boss is a fan, so there is some loyalty to the pick, but I don’t think they have a chance. I think their offense is too mediocre to be able to keep up. Their defense is great, but I have no faith in their offensive line or their QB. It seems like Big Ben is not as solid as in years past. I would hate for the Ravens to make it. Though their defense is outstanding, I can’t stand a majority of their players on defense (Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs, etc.) who over celebrate every single tackle. I also don’t like the fact that Ray Lewis can help cover up a murder and that is OK.

I’m not much of a fan of the Chargers, though I don’t hate them. Something about them annoys me. Maybe it is their whiny star RB who has finally hit the wall most RB’s hit after many years in the NFL.

In the NFC, I don’t mind any of the teams. I think it would be fun to see the Cardinals go all the way because they have always stunk. Plus you have to love their WR’s who bust their ass on every play and they are not a duo of “look at me” guys (so few WR’s just shut up and play). It is also hard to root against Kurt Warner who just seems like a good guy.

Even though the Giants upset the Patriots in last year’s Super Bowl and they are a New York team, there is a part of me that would enjoy a repeat. It would help justify the Patriots loss to them in the Super Bowl because it will show that New York was a dominant team and people just didn’t realize how dominate they were in the Super Bowl last year. Yeah, that probably will not help.

I could care less about the Eagles. They do not do much for me. Their fans are kind of annoying with the way they love their QB and Head Coach one week and then want them tar and feathered in front of Independence Hall the next week. Such schizophrenic fans.

Carolina is a fun team to watch, even though Steve Smith is a bit of a whiny doosh. We’ll see who makes it and I hope the games are fun along the way. My current pick for the Super Bowl is Baltimore against Carolina.

Comedy

Some good shows last month. I had a bunch of shows in Southern Wisconsin this past month. I was in Milwaukee, Madison and Fort Atkinson. I was the feature in Milwaukee and Madison, while being a “Co-Headliner” in Fort Atkinson. All the shows were a lot of fun. Milwaukee started off odd in that the crowds were a little weird on Friday. Not bad, but just odd. They laughed, but they were not rolling. Saturday Night there was GREAT as all three (yes, three) shows rocked. I had a blast those nights. The only thing that stunk about the weekend was that it snowed most of the weekend and I was not able to head home that Saturday Night. At least I was $40 at the casino playing poker one of the days.

I was in Madison for New Year’s Eve as well as the following weekend. This is now my favorite club around. The people that own it, run it and waitress there are some of the nicest people around. They really treat you very well and are quite accommodating. I had a total of six shows that week and there was not one so-so show. They all were an absolute blast. The only negative was that I only 25 minutes most of the nights (30 minutes on two shows), so I was hurrying up through my sets. I had to throw out a lot of jokes and there was virtually no interaction with the crowds. I love the people of Madison because they come out ready to laugh.

In Madison I worked with Claude Stuart who was a very funny and cool guy to work with. We had a lot of fun hanging out some of the days as well as our night off. We had the same sense of humor for most comedians we like as well as similar tastes in movies and music (we were both addicted the 100 Greatest Rock Songs special on VH1). He is a guy I could definitely handle working with again.

The highlight of the shows in Madison is that they invited me back to be the headliner next time. I was so fired up that they did that. I am starting to headline more elsewhere, but this was a place that I wanted to crack into so I can headline at the booker’s other rooms. I was absolutely floating after hearing that. I am hoping that I can head back to Madison when the weather is warm for a change. I would be nice to hang near the lakes down there.

It was also cool to hang out with two friends down there (Dave and Keith). Thanks guys for taking the time to hang out with me that week and checking out the show!

Fort Atkinson was also a blast as I worked as a co-headliner. Basically, it is still a two person show but instead of the 1st guy doing 30 minutes and the headliner doing 45 to 60 minutes, both of us were to do 50 to 60 minutes. I volunteered to go first so I could take off after my set. The place was great. When I first walked in, I thought, “uh oh, it is a bar and there will only be 20 people.” It was packed and they were all into it (even though the BCS Football game was on). I did 55 minutes and I did not want to leave. To make it even cooler, they owner of the place got on the phone and called the booker (someone I just started working for) and told her I did a great job. Not many owners will take the time to go out of their way to praise you to a booker (no matter how good you do). I was blown away at how nice that was and I was very excited to the good word make it back to the booker. He even tipped me $15 (something that RARELY happens).

All in all, great shows the past month and a great way to start the New Year. I think there are big things ready to happen for me in comedy for 2009. By big things, I doubt it will be TV, but more headlining, more money and more recognition should be in order.

Facebook

I am still digging Facebook. What a great invention for 30+ year olds like Holly and I. Holly and I are both hooked and the majority of our friends are on it. For some reason, we do better staying in touch with people through Facebook than we do through Email or phone conversations. It is also fun to catch up with people you haven’t seen in 20 years. There are a ton of people I went to High School with on there. The funny thing is that it making me realize how little of High School I remember. People will ask to be my friends and I will have absolutely no freaking clue who they are. After a while, I will realize they were someone I regularly hung out with. I look at my graduating class and can’t remember a majority of them.

There are a lot of people that I never spoke with in High School and now we are best buds. We are all so much different now that we are grown up than we were in High School. It is fun to realize that some people you viewed as dinks are OK now. I think it is also fun to see people be surprised that I am a comedian now. Hopefully some of them will be able to see a show in April (Hanscomb Air Force Base and Manchester, NH).

For the most part, everyone that I have connected with on Facebook have been really cool. The odd thing now is that there are a bunch of co-workers who have no become my friend, so I really need to beware of what I say. How uncool would it be to be interviewing for a job and they asked, “what happened at your last job?” “Well, uh, I kind of got fired for my inappropriate updates on Facebook.”

Holly even created a "Todd Andrews Comedy" Fan Page on facebook. Now I am totally cool.

I hope everyone is doing well and I hope 2009 is a great year for you all. Take care!!!!

Quick Hits

2008-11-09T10:48:00.000-08:00

Every time I write one of these, I always say how I need to do this more and then a month or two goes by and I don’t do a thing. I really do want to write these, but it is so hard to get the time to sit down and write something. Holly has given me the order that I need to write something today so she can send out an email campaign. I do not know exactly what I would like to talk about yet so I will be winging it (not that my other posts are well planned). So I will try to go with a format from a writer that I like. Bill Simmons, a.k.a “The Sports Guy” (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/simmons/index), periodically does a “quick hits” format where he just types out quick random thoughts. I will give it a shot. Here we go…

Patriots – How are they 5-3 going into the Bills game? I am risking typing this prior to the game, but even still I was convinced the Pats would go 8-8 without Brady. Cassell is doing just enough to help them win games. He is obviously not near as good as Brady, but he is not making major mistakes (something that can’t be said for a lot of QB’s in the league). We actually have a shot at the playoffs; it just goes to show how great of a coach Belichick is. He did not panic and go for the quick fix (Chris Sims, Culpepper, etc.) and stuck with what he knew. I am sure Cassell will be gone next year as some team is willing to trade for him and make him their team’s starter. Hopefully the Pats can get a 2nd rounder out of the deal.

DVR – I miss having DVR for my TV. It is great to be able to record whatever you want and watch it when you feel like it. How did I ever get by without this? It is also great to be able to scream through the commercials and BS talk during sporting events. Plus if I got to make a bathroom run, I can just pause it. I will never get rid of this feature. It is the most efficient way to waste my time watching TV.

50” Plasma HDTV – All I can say is SWEET!!!

Facebook – Hi, my name is Todd and I am a facebook addict. I cannot believe that I am hooked to this site. I did the MySpace thing and never truly fell in love with it. I used it to get in touch with other comics and there were a few old friends I stayed in touch with through it. But facebook has taken it to a whole other level. I have gotten in touch with a bunch of people I haven’t seen in years. There are a lot of people I have been chatting away with that I am not sure if I ever even spoke to in High School, now we are pals. It is fun to see how people have turned out. Some people don’t look different, others I would never recognize. Some have changed A LOT in a frightening way (I will not give any names). This is #2 behind DVR as the greatest invention ever. Even cooler than flight.

Gillette Stadium – I did a trade show for work that was held at Gillette Stadium last month. I never like to give details on my work online, but I will say after that week I definitely loved my job.

Entourage – Great show but it goes by too quick. Jeremy Pivons as Ari Gold is about as entertaining of a character on TV. This season is fun, but it does not seem as fun as previous seasons. Not sure why, but it is still a great show and when it ends, I always curse it for not being an hour long.

True Blood – New HBO show. Surprisingly very good. Sometimes the storyline can be a little inconsistent, but it is a fun show. On the show, Vampires exist and have existing for a long time, but now they have “come out of the coffin” and are openly living among us. There are a lot of racism parallels as people struggle to accept them into society. Very cool concept and a fun show. Very sexual and violent, typical HBO. Holly is totally hooked to the show.

Heroes – Another fun show. Holly does not like it as much as in previous years as they have gotten very dark and they are throwing out a bunch of previous storylines. I still dig the show and its borderline corniness.

The Shield – This is probably my favorite show on TV that I am hooked to. This is the final season and with three episodes left, I still do not know how they will end it. I am hooked each week and the characters are excellent. I hope more doors are opened for Michael Chiklis that does not involve the Fantastic Four. He is really good on the show, plus he is a Massachusetts alum. Can’t go wrong with that.

Election – This has been a hot topic and I fear that posting anything about it will alienate people as they have been very passionate about this election. It seems that people are either too angry that Obama got elected or too happy he did. I think the Election was between Obama and Bush. I am not a Bush fan as he spent too much, something that is not traditionally a republican trait. I worry that Obama will come in and spend either the same or more than Bush which in the end will raise taxes. I think he will spend more because he has not shown how he will cut money, but he has made promises for spending more. The latest rumor (that I hope is a rumor) is that he may look into having the government take over 401k’s and IRA’s. If this happens, I will shit. I am already a little scared saving for retirement because someday I will have a nice nest egg to live off of, and I worry that all the people that didn’t save anything will look at me and say, “Hey, look at all the money he has. He doesn’t need that match; he should share some of that with us.” I hope this never happens, but I fear that it will. I am of the strong view that we need less government in our lives and more personal responsibility.

Sick neighbor – I just found out that a guy right around the corner from me got arrested for downloading underage movies. He and his 17 year old son were both busted. Here is the article:

http://www.riverfallsjournal.com/articles/index.cfm?id=89468&section=News

I am so blown away right now. When I first read it, I thought I was going to have to put my house on the market. But then I reminded myself that he will be in jail for a while and even if he wasn’t, he will not be allowed to live in that house because our backyards butt up against an elementary school. No way is he allowed to live that close. I can’t believe there are people in this world that dig that crap and that they live so close to me.

I am sure this more that I would like to write in general, but I am drawing a blank and I have the beginning of the Pats game on pause (thank you DVR) to write this. I hope everyone is well. I was going to head back to Boston in the 1st weekend of December, but that will probably not happen. I will be back in April though as I have a show for the troops at Hanscomb Air Force base. Nice!

Montreal and HDTV

2008-09-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

As usual, I talk about how much I want to write more blogs, yet weeks go by and I don’t do it. I really wish that I did this more and I usually have the best of intentions in doing it, but it is combination of lack of time and laziness (to be perfectly honest). Work lately has been very busy and when I do have some time, I just don’t have the mental energy to sit down and write (but really, do I ever really have mental energy?).

Montreal
There has been a lot going on, but it is so hard to capture it all the moment I sit down and decide to start writing. As I start to write this blog, I am sitting on a plane from Montreal back to Minneapolis/St. Paul. I just finished a week in whacky Canada, ay. It is so weird to be back to Montreal. I had been there twice before. The first time I went was in February of 1990 when I was less than a month shy of my 16th birthday. What a crazy place to go at that age. A bunch of other high schoolers in my class (we were all Juniors) went on a “ski trip” there. We did ski, but we also drank a ton as well as went into a bunch of strip clubs. While I currently believe that strip clubs are a waste of money and only good for unintentional comedy (especially the one in Hager City, WI), at the age of 15/16, they are a gift from God. I was so blown away to be able to see grown women get totally naked and dance for me, even though I was wearing braces and obviously under the age of 18. Even though I was mostly with people I did not hang out with regularly in high school, we were all friends in Canada. One of the guys even got a gun pulled on him late night on St. Catherine street (fortunately, the drunk lady holding it had no bullets in it as she kept pulling the trigger only to hear “click click”).

The 2nd time I went to Montreal was for my buddy’s Jay’s bachelor party in July of 2002. As I recall, it was a pretty good time. We drank, but we never got totally insane or out of hand. We did go to a lot of strip clubs and some of them were creepy. I am not sure we were always having fun in them as there was always a debate on which club we should be in. We seemed to have more fun when we were out and about just drinking as opposed to sitting still in a strip club and paying for $7 beers.

The funny thing about being there twice and returning back was that nothing seemed familiar to me at all. Even though I was staying right by Saint Catherine Street and I was on the street at some point virtually every day, barely anything seemed familiar. It was odd, I thought a bunch of memories would come crashing back to me, but it didn’t. I guess I drank more than I thought last time I was there.

I did have one memory come back to me that I had not thought of since 2002 came to me when I went to dinner my first night (Monday). Our Canadian sales rep took me to a restaurant on Crescent Street. While sitting on an outdoor patio of the restaurant on the 2nd floor, I all of sudden realized the street was familiar. Then it came crashing back to me. In 2002, we ate at a place a few doors down (on a 2nd floor outdoor patio as well) and I started yelling at girls across the street that we on a balcony on the 4th floor of a hotel. They were partying a bit and seeming to have a good time. I started to interact with them from across the street, and then it turned into me demanding that they show their boobs. Yes, I was a classy guy when I was 28 and drunk. A bunch of them ended up doing it and we actually had an entourage of people collecting around us to see it go on. It was fun because none of us had any intention of trying to hook up with any of the girls (all of us were taken at the time), we just wanted to see their boobs and there was no other commitment from either party.

This time in Montreal was a lot less tame. I never had more than two glasses of wine, I never went to a strip club and I was in my room every night by 8:30. The highlight of the week was going to the casino to play poker. It was a weird set-up; it was a combo of live and online poker. You sit at a table and each player has a monitor in front of them. You can see what cards you have and place your bets on it. ON the middle of the table is a larger monitor that everyone can see what the community cards are and what people are betting. I played 10 hands of $1-$2 No Limit and one won hand worth $148. Take away the $3 for blinds and $7 to see the flop in another hand and I profited $138 in 15 minutes (Canadian Money). By the time the big blind made it back to me, I withdrew my money and took off. I couldn’t have been happier.

Quebec is weird because they all speak French. I seriously thought I was in France (minus the neat landscape and good food). It felt like I was in another world and instantly felt guilty every time someone said “Bonjour” and I replied “Hello.” I have no clue why I would feel that way, maybe I just assume I did something rude when I was there before and they remember me.

HDTV
I made a purchase a few weeks ago that I have been thinking about for quite some time. I finally made the leap to buying a plasma TV and upgrading my service to HD. To be honest, I don’t know why I waited so long to get it because I absolutely love it. Sports are so much cooler in HD and even regular shows are pretty sweet. I got a 50” Samsung that was highly rated by Consumer Reports that is 1080p capable. I know that I don’t have the use yet for 1080p, but someday when I get a Playstation 3, it will come in handy. I also bought a new stand (ouch these are expensive) that allows me more room for the auxiliary equipment as well as mounts the TV up in the air a bit so it is easier to see. Add in an unconverting DVD player for $20 and I am living large.

Of course, I have the NFL package from DirecTV. I was all fired up to watch the Patriots all year in HD, but now that Brady is knocked out for the season, it doesn’t have the same ring to it. But I love watching football no matter what team is on, so it is still a winning situation. It will also be cool to watch Red Sox playoff games in HD soon. Hard to imagine they will win it again this year, but it would be pretty nice.

Comedy, Bar Mitzvah & Football....What a Combination?

2008-08-25T18:53:00.000-07:00

Comedy
I finally got to have some shows locally. I got booked last weekend at the Joke Joint outside of the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN as the headliner. Shows went from Thursday night to Saturday night with two shows on Saturday night. I also got a show Sunday night in Excelsior, MN off of Lake Minnetonka and a Bar Mitzvah before the Saturday shows. More on that later.

The Joke Joint was a lot of fun, as expected. It is a wonderful club that really took the next step when they remodeled to create more space and symmetry to the club. It is run Ken and Becky Reed who are super nice people and very accommodating. The Feature act was Amber Preston who I have known since shortly after I moved out here. She is a very funny, original comic who has really improved a ton since I last saw her (not that she was no good before, she has become very good now). We also had some guest spots throughout the weekend and rotating hosts who were brand spanking new. The hosts were very nice, but also very green. New comics typically seem a bit scared on stage, and they were no exception to the rule. But both had a good basis of material and if they keep getting up on stage, they will be fine.

The toughest show was probably the Thursday Night show. I felt sick as a dog that night. For some reason, I had a 24 hour bug that I could not shake until the next day. I was miserable at work all day, but since I was so busy I could not take the day off so I had to brave through it and then head to the show. You could tell that the crowd was a little tired or just not in the mood because they really did not give the other comics much of a chance. It didn’t help that the crowd was small (about 20 people), but that is expected with summer shows on a weeknight. Even though I felt sick as heck and they were a timid crowd, the set went OK. It was far from great, but it wasn’t bad. I would have liked it to have been a better set, but I can’t complain too much considering the circumstances. I think overall, the smaller crowd had fun but I expect more from myself. I was worrying after the show that Ken was thinking, “Why did I let him headline?” Fortunately the other nights were better.

Friday was a fun night. A lot of my co-workers at my day job came out to see me which was great to see. There were even some co-workers who I thought would never come to show of mine there. Friday was also fun because Holly came out with a couple of her friends. All the comics did a fine job getting the show going with Amber just rocking. She really had a wonderful set. I came up and the crowd was all warmed up and ready to go. It was a blast because they had a lot of energy and I was just able to feed off of it. I may have come up with a little too much energy because the sound apparently had to be turned down and it messed me up because I thought the mike went out. There was a bachelorette party sitting up front in the middle of the room and they got a little nutty (like all bachelorette parties do). Typically, when comics see a bachelorette party, they think “Oh shit, they are going to screw up the show by being obnoxious.” A lot of times, they do. This one was on the fence. I was able to get some interaction with them that was funny. I even had one of the girls yell out 15 minutes in “Are you married?” which was odd because I had spoken about my wife often during the first 15 minutes. The only one that just got a bit old was the bride’s aunt. She would not shut the hell up. She was not heckling, but she thought she could be a part of the show. Even when you put her in her place, she thought it was fun and the crowd loves to see the comic put down some 55 year old over-tanned women who stinks of cigarettes. Besides the old woman occasionally barking out nonsense, it was a really funny set and it was cool to have co-workers and Holly’s friends there to see it. It is always fun to have people look at you after the show with a bit of surprise at how funny you can be. I think a lot of them get used to seeing me in a work environment and don’t know that I am capable to turn it on for a show. I wish I got to hang out more with people after the show, but we try and sell T-shirts and crowd members come and talk to us after the show. By the time people started to leave us alone, Holly’s friends were ready to leave and a bunch of the co-workers had taken off.

Saturday’s shows at the Joke Joint were a lot of fun as well. There were a fair amount of people I knew in the crowd for the early show as well, but not as much as Friday night’s. The early show was a lot of fun and I was very pleased with the performance. The later show was a harder crowd. They seemed to be on and off for the other comics and it was similar for me. They seemed to love me one second, then the next just OK. I am used to late shows being a bit more rowdy as they are typically drunker, but this one was a bit tepid. After the show, a couple of us hung in the bar and that was pretty fun. Overall, the weekend at the Joke Joint was great and a lot of fun and I can’t wait to go back. I have already had people who could not make it ask me when I am there next. Hopefully sometime in the winter I can be back to headline again.

Bar Mitzvah
The interesting show of the weekend was the Bar Mitzvah I was hired for before the shows on Saturday. It was booked through Ken at the Joke Joint and it involved Amber and me. She was to do 10 minutes and I was to do 20 minutes. We were going to be pressed for time as the show was supposed to start at 6:30 to 6:45 and the show at the Joke Joint (30 minutes away) started at 7:30. I showed up at the Bar Mitzvah at 6:00 and it was empty except for the mother and a few stragglers. As people were coming in, the “man of honor” was outside with his friends and brother smashing cans of soda on the ground near the entry way. He was also dressed in a T-shirt and crappy pants and sneakers. I was under the impression that Bar Mitzvahs were a pretty big deal, but this kid did not dress the part. Not even khaki’s and a polo shirt. Eventually people came in just in enough time for the show. People really did not have a chance to be situated or have a drink or two (for the adults) before the show started.

I knew it was going to be a tough start when they introduced Amber as the “warm up” act to the comic. Ouch, what a brutal intro to give her. It completely minimizes her ability and gives the audience and out to not give her a chance. Amber did fine and fought through it even though the “man of honors” table was talking throughout her set. She eventually wrapped up her set and took off for the Joke Joint.

My set was OK. It was not near as bad as it could have been but it was not an “A” show either but it was decent. Once you realize that you need to ignore the kids at the front table and concentrate on the adults it was fine and they were willing to laugh. The kids at the front table though, oh my GOD! They gave me a great example of how I don’t want Quinlan to act when he is older. Not all the kids were bad; it was actually just 3 of the boys, including the “man of honor” who acted up. The one that the party was for would like to brag during the show that he likes to “blow things up” and hopes to continue to do that when he grows up. He made it a point to say this a few times during my set and Amber’s. There was also a smaller kid (may have been his brother) who would start talking out loud about stuff that made no sense. In the end, it was a fun time except for the kids. I can’t believe that I have a Bar Mitzvah on my comedy resume now. Big things are ahead, I am hoping to make perform at a Baptism in the near future. Maybe even a funeral.

Football
Football is right around the corner. It is hard to believe. I am both excited and sad because I love football but it also means that summer is almost over. Football feels even closer than normal because we had our draft in the Waltham Goofs league this past Wednesday night. This is a keeper league that is entering its 11th year that I have run the whole time. Since the first year, we have had all the same people in the league. Unfortunately, we lost of them this year. My friend Jay bailed on the league last minute because we were going to implement two more people into the league. We ended up going back to an 8 team league after his quitting and replaced Jay with another guy named Jay so it is easy to keep track of. There are rumors that another guy will leave at the end of the year, so we may be looking for more players and that may be the reason to go to ten people. It is a shame to see one of the original guys leave the league because this has been my link to the college buddies back east since I moved to WI. If I had to choose one of the guys to leave, it definitely would not have been Jay. Such is the life of grown up men who play make-believe football games.

I kind of dig my team after the draft. I kept Adrian Peterson, Tony Romo and Calvin Johnson (I took Calvin over Brandon Jacobs, Laurence Maroney and Greg Jennings). Here is my final roster to start the season:

QB – Tony Romo

QB – Matt Hasselbeck

RB – Adrian Peterson

RB – Joseph Addai

RB – Larry Johnson

RB – Brandon Jacobs

RB – Chris Johnson

WR – Torry Holt

WR – Chad Johnson

WR – Calvin Johnson

WR – Donald Driver

TE – Chris Cooley

TE – Vernon Davis

Kicker – Shayne Graham

Kicker – Phil Dawson

Defense – Green Bay Packers

Defense – New York Giants

Considering it is an 8 team league where we can keep three players (with some rules on keepers), I think it is a pretty nice team. I had the #2 pick where I had the choice of Brian Westbrook and Joseph Addai. I could not decide and I was leaning towards Wetsbrook. I ended up making a deal that would allow me to move from the 3rd round to the 2nd round if I went back to the #3 pick. I made it and ended up with Larry Johnson in the 2nd. So my trade essentially made it so I traded Brian Westbrook for Joseph Addai and Larry Johnson. Seems like a favorable deal although Larry Johnson is a one man show in KC for better or for worse. In the end, it is just a guessing game who has the best team.

Summer Update

2008-08-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

Comedy

Two weeks ago, I traveled the furthest west for comedy than I ever have. I performed on Tuesday night in Dickinson, ND; Wednesday night in Williston, ND; Thursday night in Bismarck, ND and finished off Friday in Saint Cloud, MN. A lot of comics do the road thing and drive a lot; since I do it part time I don’t drive as far and as often as some of the other guys. I had never been in the car for 8 hours to get to a show before. That is what I did in order to get to Dickinson, ND on Tuesday. I ended up burning 3 days of vacation (I had summer hours on that Friday) in order to make the run.

I had never done the run before because the pay was not worth it to do it as a Feature but I recently started asking the booker to headline me and they agreed to “co-headline” me for this run. Co-headline pretty much means that there are two headliners and we alternate which nights we go last. I ended up headlining Dickinson (the first night) and Saint Cloud (the last night). The most fortunate thing about the trip was that I did with a guy who was a good guy and easy to talk to in the car. I worked with a comic from Ohio names Steve Sabo. Quality guy and quality comic. He has been headlining for several years and I was a little worried that the other guy would get pissy if he had to go first, but Steve did not mind at all and he was very helpful. If I hadn’t driven with him and I was by myself, I think I would have pulled over and some point, put the car in neutral on a hill and lay my head behind the tire. That is a boring drive. There is practically nothing in North Dakota. The only cool thing was driving through the Theodore Roosevelt National Park between Dickinson and Williston. That was beautiful and it was like a mini-Grand Canyon. I wish we pulled over for a bit and checked it out. We ended up just driving through. Besides that though, there is nothing to see. It is farm after farm after farm. There are barely any other cars on the road. I just don’t get how people can live there all year round, especially in the winter where it is colder than it is in Minnesota.

The first night was Dickinson. I headlined it and I was nervous because typically the first night is a night that I might shake out some of the cobwebs, especially in a state that is not Minnesota or Wisconsin. So much of my act is geared around MN/WI, that sometimes I forget how to tell it in another state and the first show can consist of me playing around with my act trying to figure out the right way to tweak. After that I am usually cool. The show was in a hotel bar and there was no stage. We were basically in the corner with a microphone right by the pool tables (fortunately, no one was playing at the time). The crowd was packed but very talkative and drunk. Yes, it was Tuesday and they were drunk. Where else in the world do people get smashed on a Tuesday Night? It was still pretty fun and we both did well, but it felt like it could have been better.

The next night we went to Williston. Williston is only like 30 miles from the Montana border. Are you kidding me? You know it is bad when we stop at a convenience store and Steve asks the girl behind the counter if they have the USA Today and they never heard of it. Apparently North Dakota is no longer in the US. Who’d have thunk it? Williston was another place filled with people getting smashed. Yep, they get smashed on Wednesday nights, too. Stay classy, North Dakota. It was a weird set-up in that there was a stripper pole at the very edge of the stage. The crowd liked to participate, not heckle, but they were fun and we had a good time with some ad-libs. The staff and owner were super nice and the people in the place were very nice as well, even though there were a ton of people who I could not shake after the show. The people who are smashed and can’t stop talking to you. Usually they have a joke for you to “tell in your act” or they give me advice. In the end, they mean well and are nice, so I try to bear with it as long as I can.

Steve made an almost fatal error that night. While on stage, he asked for a shot on stage which personally I think is a kiss of death in Williston. It almost was the death of him as someone sent up a cup of Jagermeister. Not a shot, an 8+ ounce cup of Jager. OUCH!!!! I like Jager, but I would never take a cup of it. Steve drank it at the end of his set and I have to give him credit, he stayed vertical. I thought I would be baby-sitting him the rest of the night, but he did OK. He was smashed and blacked out, but he was not out of control, which was nice.

Probably the most interesting thing that happened up there was that I ran into a former co-worker from my current job. I was standing there and a guy came up and said, “Remember me?” I didn’t and I usually get a little nervous around this time. I am scared that the next sentence will begin with, “Last time I saw you, you were so trashed……” Fortunately, it wasn’t that and he said we used to work together. I ended up remembering him. I didn’t know him well at my job, but I still thought it was neat that I ran into someone in the middle of nowhere (where USA Today does not exist).

The next night was in Bismarck which is the Capital of North Dakota, which is really not something to brag about. The show that night was fun despite it being a very small crowd (about 20 people). There was some fun interaction with the crowd. There was actually an Iraqi guy in the crowd who works at the airport. Only in North Dakota. Steve wanted to get together with a girl after the show, so we went with her and some of her old friends at some local bar. I don’t think I have ever been a bar with more dooshbags than this place. It seemed like every guy either had a hat on backwards, hat on crooked, hat with the flat brim or sunglasses on. Every guy in the place was embarrassingly trashy. They all also were wearing shirts that were too tight. I will give the retards credit; they did not break out into a fight (which I thought was inevitable).

The final night was in Saint Cloud which was fun as it always is. I should have stayed there because there were two friends who I could have hung out with. I kind of felt bad that I didn’t, but at this point I was dying to be home and see my little buddy in the morning.

The following week (this past one), I worked one night with Richie Holliday and Andy Woodhull at the Carver County Fair. It was a very tough set-up in that it was in a huge shed where more than half the people are there to drink and wait for the country band to go up after us. There was a ton of noise in the shed from people talking in the back and with the sides open, you could hear all the noise from the rest of the fair. The sound system was not the best either and add in the fact that there were some little kids in the area, it made for a tough time to perform. In the end, it ended up being a lot of fun and I was glad that I did it. Plus it was fun to drive with the guys and talk a little shop.

Quinlan

Quinlan is getting bigger and faster by the day. He can run around very fast now and when we are out and about, he needs to be in your eye site at all times or he is gone. When he is walking outside though, do not try and pick him up or steer him in a particular direction because he is so focused on where he is going, he does not want to be stopped. His bottom two teeth still have not come in, so he is insanely cute when he smiles. He is not talking still, but he babbles a ton and makes a lot of funny sounds. He has even become a great dancer. If you want to get a good laugh check out his dance moves in this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyFrU673Hvc

He just started doing this out of nowhere when I was trying to study and it was hysterical. Fortunately, he was willing to do it long enough for us to record. I can’t wait to be able to share this with him when he gets older.

He got to walk around the Pierce County Fair twice this weekend, Thursday Night and Sunday Afternoon. Both days, he could only handle being in the carriage or our arms for about 30 minutes, then he had to run around. He ran all over the place and almost trip up a bunch of crapper busting fatties. The fair brings out some of the largest, trashiest people I have ever seen. It is also a great place for teenagers to sneak cigarettes apparently.

Manny

Good riddance to this clown. The Red Sox traded him last month along with some cash and two younger players (Hansen and Moss) for Jason Bay. I think Bay is a fine player and should fit in well with the Sox, but what a way for Manny to go out. He fakes an injury and then trashes the Red Sox the week of the trading deadline creating his trade value to plummet because everyone knew the Sox HAD to get rid of him. This retard says that the Red Sox did not treat him fairly. He has made over $150 million dollars from the Sox and he is mistreated???? I wish I could be punished by the Red Sox, I hate having it so easy.

I defended him over the years, now I root for him to get kidnapped and raped on a vacation in Ecuador. Screw him and I hope he tears an ACL. God, I hate these players who piss and moan and act like overgrown babies. At least I got the Patriots to look forward to. I got my subscription to the Sunday Ticket and I plan on watching all the games (well except for the ones that interfere with the niece’s birthday parties because they are always held on Sunday afternoons).

The Patriots will be back to the Big Game. You heard it here first.

Wedding in St. Paul

I was stuck going to Holly's cousin's wedding. It was cool that it was at the Science Museum in St. Paul, but I hate going there where I don't know many people. Hey, but we looked good though!

Dark Knight

I got to see The Dark Knight on opening weekend. What a fun, solid movie. Heath Ledger lived up to all the hype and blew me away (no pun intended to Mr. Brokeback Mountain). He easily outdid Nicholson and should get nominated for the Oscar. He will probably win it due, in part, to his untimely death. I look forward to seeing it again because I think I missed some things and I am sure I will appreciate the movie more. The only criticism I have is that it was a little long and it is dumb when Batman/Bruce Wayne talks to Morgan Freeman’s character with the Batman voice when he is dressed up as Batman. He knows he is Batman, why do the dumb voice? I wish Freeman’s character would yell at him and tell him to knock that shit off.

I know there is more to share, but I keep forgetting what I want to talk about. I need to do this more regularly, but I keep forgetting or I get too lazy. I’ll see what I can do as the year goes on.

By the way, Jay Cormier sucks.

Company Picnic, Batman & North Dakota

2008-07-20T16:04:00.000-07:00

Company Picnic

Today was a pretty fun day with Quinlan. We had our company picnic today in the cities. It is pretty exciting to be able to show off the little guy while also seeing everyone else’s children. They day was perfect for me because it was overcast and in the upper 70’s. Does it get any better for the Irish?

After his morning nap, we threw him into the car seat and headed. At first we kept him in his stroller as we knew once he touched the ground with his feet, he would be all over the place. He stayed in his stroller great because he is typically hesitant (at first) with people he does not know. At some point on of us (me) decided to take him out because I saw another co-worker’s one year old walking around like a good boy. The minute Quinlan stood, he was off. He borderline runs when he is on the ground, as if he is thinking it might not last and he better make a run for it before the evil tall people he lives with pick him up for some reason.

He went on the play ground and loved it. After playing on that for a bit, he was content just running around all over the place and fussing whenever one of us picked him up. He had a ball when he was walking, but he was miserable when we had him. He is learning that magic ability kids get when their whole body goes limp and they arch their back in a way that only skilled parents can hold. Fortunately, I think I have made it to skilled parent because I haven’t dropped him………….yet.

They did have one those big blow-up obstacle courses. We were allowed to go into the back and bounce around while everyone ate. We had to do something while Mommy ate. We made a deal that one of us would eat while the other watched Quinlan. I had forgotten that Holly eats like a mule and let her go first. I have never seen anyone eat as slow as Holly. She eats like she is on Death Row and she is getting her last meal while the guard is waiting to walk her to the chair. He LOVED the blow-up course though. I placed him on the ground of it and then just bounced around near him. He giggled like crazy as he kept trying to stand up but falling over because of the bouncing. Eventually though, some kid had to come down the slide so we had to get off the toy. Quinlan was not happy. Fortunately we got some snackies while Holly continued her marathon chewing session.

Later on we got to go through the whole obstacle course. I carried him through it. He could not get enough of it. He giggles the while way. He especially loved it when I had to climb the slide which is not easy to do while carrying a kid in one hand. He giggled the whole way up; personally I think it was because I think he thought it was hilarious to listen to his Dad pant like a 400 pound person in McDonald’s line. He giggled all the way through until the end when we had to get off. Then he got grumpy. I had to do it again shortly after. Of course he loved it; of course I almost died because I am 34 year old who is out of shape. It is frustrating to watch those 8 year olds run through it over and over and I can barely do it once. It made me want to push one of them to the ground.

Overall, he had a fun time. There were grumpy moments, but he was a good boy as usual. He even got to have some of a strawberry popsicle (he rarely gets sugar). He loved it and he looked like the Joker when it was done. We eventually got him home for his afternoon nap and we played after for while. He is getting to be a ton of fun to play with. I swear he gets cuter by the day!

Batman

The geek in me may get to come out in me on Sunday as I try and see the new Batman movie “The Dark Knight.” I have been waiting for this for over 6 months. I am fired up for it and I hear it is great. I want to see it in the first weekend and the matinee is my only chance. My mother is going to watch him and we will try to catch the 12:00 show. Hopefully he is not too tired in the afternoon for her.

I think it is pathetic how excited I am for this movie. What grown man digs comic book movies so much? I know some day Quinlan will look me in the eye and say, “Dad, you are the biggest retard.” I hope he digs movies when he is older. I love going to them and it will be fun to bring him to the Disney movies.

They say Heath Ledger is great in this one as the Joker. I have not been much of fan of his, and it has nothing to do with Brokeback because I never saw it. I don’t know what it is about him, but I was never impressed. But everything about him in the previews seems good. When I first heard they cast him, I rolled my eyes but it sounds like they nailed it. Too bad for him it was his last movie.

North Dakota

I have the distinct pleasure of driving to the furthest reaches of North Dakota in a week and a half. I will be performing in Dickinson, ND (Tuesday Night), Williston, ND (Wed and it is in the corner of Montana and Canada), then Bismarck, ND on Thursday followed by Saint Cloud, MN on Friday. I have avoided doing the Dickinson show forever. But I recently asked the booker to headline me and they agreed to, if I started off out there as a “co-headliner.” You have to break in somewhere, right? Hopefully the guy I am working with is an OK guy because there will be a LOT of hours in the car. I have been stuck with the “idiot comic” before for long drives and that was torture. But I think I have heard that he is an OK guy.

You know you have made it as a comic when you have made it to Williston, ND.

Stuff

2008-06-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been ages since I last wrote. Not sure what is new or what is to say, but what the hell, I will give it a try. First off, Congrats to the Celtics!!! I did not expect them to win it all at any point except after game 2 against the Lakers. Even when they traded for Garnett and Allen, I thought they were a top 2 or 3 team in the East, not the best team in the league. I thought they were only three players with a bunch of stiffs and a crappy coach. I was very wrong. They had some solid role players (Rowe, Brown, Posey) and an up and coming point guard (Rondo). Their coach also decided to become a solid coach when it mattered (in the Detroit and Lakers series).

In the playoffs, I always thought they would make it to Detroit and then get knocked out. I was convinced they would after they stumbled by Atlanta and Cleveland who they should have beat up on. Up until the Detroit series, they had not won on the road (though they were un-defeated at home) which is something you have to do in order to win it all. I was so annoyed that they could not beat up on Atlanta and Cleveland and Rivers seemed like he was trying to lose (keeping Garnett and Pierce on the bench during critical times even though the commercial time outs last forever in the NBA). Plus he kept feeling the need to play Sam Cassell who single handedly made me get the urge to try out for the NBA. Naturally, when the Pistons won one in Boston, I thought it was over. Then the Celtics kick the snot out of the Pistons in Detroit and I had hope. But I felt that the hope would be short lived because even if they could get past the Pistons, the Lakers or Spurs would beat them. Didn’t happen! The Celtics went on to win the 1st two at home (even though they almost blew game two) and then stole one in Los Angeles (probably one of the greatest comebacks in sports history being down by more than 20 in the first quarter. By the time they went back to Boston, you were pretty sure they would win, even though I was a little nervous about them blowing it. Not only did they win game 6, they DESTROYED the Lakers in that game. It was embarrassing. They ended up winning by almost 40 points which is insane considering the other team had the “best player in the NBA” on its team. (On a side note, any talk of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan went right out the window in this series. He never truly took any game over and carried the team on his back, as Jordan would. He’s a great player, but he is not Jordan and he is ESPECIALLY not Bird……..but honestly, who is?).

As for the other Boston sports teams, the Bruins are sill not interesting. Football is quiet, especially with the (apparent) end to the Spygate saga. Although the Patriots will be interesting on defense after drafting a linebacker high in the draft (10) for the first time in Belichick’s tenure with the Patriots. I think it was even the first time he picked one in the 1st 3 rounds. They should still be contenders for the championship (which they should have won this year to complete the trifecta). The Red Sox are in first place despite a bunch of injuries (Schilling, Ortiz, Dice-K), but there is still so much left in the season, it is too early to get excited. I did get to see the Sox get beat up by the Twins (ugh) this year.

Quinlan

Quinlan is now 14 months old and he is an absolute blast! He is walking and babbling like a maniac. We got worried because it took him so long to start crawling and walking. But when he learned to do both, he took right off. Now he can walk all around the house without too much falling or needing helps with the walls. Sometimes if he wants to get somewhere quick, he just drops down and crawls like a crazy spider-monkey.

He is a rock star with the eating. There are only a few things he won’t eat (eggs and chicken), other than that he will eat most things. He loves sweet potato fries, spinach and salmon (yes, I said Salmon. Holly introduced it to him and he crams it down. Quite the expensive meal for your one year old). He has not been eating a ton of sweets which is good. I don’t want him to become one of those kids that only eats sweets while never eating anything half decent.

He is also getting quite the personality. Ever since he started sleeping better (after the whole crying it out weekend), he is a much happier livelier baby. He babbles a ton, even though he isn’t saying any words. He has his own little language. He gets very giggly, especially for Daddy. He likes to act like he is chasing me which is really cute. We are so obnoxious with the camera, we have so many pictures of him it is ridiculous, but it is fun. I even bought a new camcorder for comedy, which I am sure we will use more on Quinlan.

Travel

Last month I traveled for work quite often (3 times). I went to Penn State, Boston and San Diego. Penn State was for training in Fermentation. For the most part, it was a waste of time and money because the lab equipment did not work. Our company paid $2,000 for the training and the equipment doesn’t work??? Fortunately, some of the in-class stuff was interesting and educational. I definitely did learn a bit. I met some fun people at the class from all over the east coast (NJ, MA, Philly) and we hung out a lot. The last night we decided to stay out late and I was hurting for the last half day of training. We found a place that had $1 pitchers of beer. Not cups…..PITCHERS!!!!! Not a good idea. Fortunately, the people I hung out with were a blast and we had a lot of laughs.

San Deigo was cool but we did not really have a ton of time (or energy) to site see. We did get to see the ocean and eat good (Mexican food in SD is great!). Our hotel was right on the a bay near the ocean, it was beautiful. Holly wanted to go, but I wasn’t sure if it was a hot idea or not. I was wrong and now I am promising her to allow her to go next year (same show in San Diego). She will be able to site see and spend my money while I stand in a trade show booth all day.

I did get to sneak in a trip to Boston for work and for play. I had some excellent business visits that more than paid for the trip out there. While out there, I went golfing with the guys in NH for the 1st time in probably 5 years. It was fun to get out for the first time and swing the clubs (even though I was painfully inconsistent) and we played a ton of poker (I think I won a total of $80). I tried to have some beer, but I was finding it to make me full and tired. I guess I do not drink enough Sam Adams anymore and I guess I am getting old. So sad.

The one odd thing from the weekend was when we needed to drive back to the cabin on Saturday. Some people wanted to continue while others wanted to go back. I was one of the ones to go back. There were going to be 5 of us in the car, so three of us would e stuck crammed in the back. I mentioned to one of our friends that it looked like we would all have to flip for the front seat. He proceeded to announce that he called the front seat when they were in the clubhouse and he had the front seat. He then went out to the car to sit in it to make sure he got the front seat. Yep, this is a 35 year old guy who did the stuff we used to do when we were 13. Nice.

Freezing and a Patriots Thought

2008-01-29T21:38:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how cold it is. After being in the 40's on Monday, it was -9 F with a -30 F wind chill factor as I drove through town tonight at 7:30 p.m. That is just not right. I think we will spend $200 tonight just on trying to keep Quinlan's room warm enough. His room is right above the garage in the front of the house where the wind bombards the house. The poor little guy has the coldest room in the house. Doesn't matter though, he will be in our bed by midnight.

Just 5 days until the big game. It looks like we are going to have some family over for the game. I was torn on whether to have people over or not. Part of me wants to watch the game uninterrupted with no distractions, but then again it is fun to have people over to enjoy it with you. Hopefully the Patriots do not let me down. I just don't see them losing.

The only way I could handle them losing is if Eli ends up having a huge day (like 5 TD's), but he never takes his helmet off during the game. At the end of the game, he takes his helmet off and it is actually Peyton in Eli's Giants uniform yelling out, "I'm going to Disneyland bitches!!!" Then Jim Ross from WWE can be yelling out, "MY GOD!!! MY GOD!!! That's Peyton Manning out there!!!!!" I could live with an ending like that.

Patriots

2008-01-18T13:03:00.000-08:00

Nice win last weekend, but I am still nervous about our defense. Seymour seems invisible. Seau is way too inconsistent. Harrison can't seem to not piss off the refs. Hobbs/Gay can't seem to cover mediocre WR's. But they do seem to play better in the 2nd halves. Has to be the tapes.

Brady is a God. 93% completion percentage??? That includes and awful drop by Welker and a pass interference on a Watson attempt. Can he get any better? If they win it all, isn't he the best ever? Fock Montana!!!

Maroney is living up to his potential. I am starting to wonder if Belichick knew he would be like this, but figured we only needed him for the playoffs. So instead of using him in the regular season ans risking a hang nail, he could save him to feast on the Jags.

Moss did not hit that girl. Scam gone bad. I'd let him break a finger of mine for $100k.
Welker is kind of good. I remember thinking we give too much for him, now I think it is a steal. Only a 2nd rounder?????

I am kind of glad the Colts didn't make it because I was scared of them, but I am now kind of worried that we will be victim of the "be careful what you wish for..." curse. On paper, how do we not win? We killed them earlier in the year and their three best players are dinged up (I think they all play), but they still seem dangerous. Plus it looks like Vincent Jackson figured out how to play as a big WR and Chambers is now on board. The Chargers need to play mistake free football and get some lucky turnovers (like in the Indy game) to win it, which is definitely a possibility.

People are saying this will be a "cake walk," but I think the cake walks are done and have been done for a bit. The Chargers will play them tough and may even have the lead in the 2nd and/or 3rd quarter. In the end, the Patriots do what needs to be done and win the game by 10 points or less.
I am praying hard for a Patriots/Packers Super Bowl. How cool would be it be to live in Wisconsin and be an obnoxious Patriots fan for two weeks? I might get lynched in a cornfield if Iam not careful.

New Year's

2008-01-10T23:11:00.000-08:00

First off, I hope everyone had a great holiday season and a New Year. Ours was very good. It has been ages since I last wrote a blog. So much has gone on; I don't know where to begin. Let's start off with recent comedy shows.

Comedy
The end of the year had me breaking my Michigan cherry. Though I have had a ton of offers to perform in Michigan, I never did. I never did mainly because of how long of a drive it is and the fact that I have to take significant time off of work. Typically, the pay does not justify the cost to get out there. But I figured I had to try it at some point. Also since it was the end of the year, it was easier to take off work. It ended up being at Dr. Grins in Grand Rapids, MI.

I ended up paying for a flight out there. I figure I had the choice of paying $250 for a flight or $100+ plus in gas. Plus the drive was 9 hours each way. I figured what the hell, fly out there and save some time so I can spend more time with Quinlan.

The big downside of flying is that I have no car out there. I was to be out there Thursday through Sunday and no car could get rough. Fortunately, the club reimbursed me for the cab fare to and from the airport and one of the nights to the club. That helped a ton. The rest of the nights, the headliner drove me to the shows.

Being trapped in the hotel was pretty painful though. I had nothing to do all day. It hurt too that I had no school work to work on, so I mostly played online poker (when the internet was working). One of the days, the headliner and I did go see a movie. We saw American Gangster. It was pretty good despite the occasional Denzel overacting.

The shows were good. It was odd; the Thursday Night show was hands down the best night. Usually, they are the slower than the other nights. Thursday night would have been the perfect night to record for promo material. The other nights were still good. The late shows on Friday and Saturday night were OK, but were a lot of work. People were annihilated and acting up a bit from beginning to end. The headliner even had to get people kicked out of one of the shows (which he said was a first for him).

I kind of lost my cool a little on the late show on Friday. There was a table that showed up a minute before I was to be introduced. They were hollering out nonsense and talking to each other as if there was no show. They were trying to talk to me from right off the bat. I tried to put them in their place, but they were not getting it. You could tell that the rest of the crowd was obviously getting annoyed and the staff hadn't done anything about it yet. There was one girl in particular that would not shut up. It wasn't true heckling, it was just shouting out nonsense. I finally got fed up and said, "Why don't you shut the f*ck up, you dumb wh0re." The crowd exploded in laughter and applause, but she run up on stage and stood next to me yelling at me saying she is hot and I could never get a girl like her. I was kind of in shock that she came up on stage. I told her to sit the hell down.

Fortunately, the bouncer came up and escorted her off the stage. As she was getting off the stage I said, "Apparently a trailer in Sparta in missing its wh0re." The crowd loved it because everyone hated her for not being quiet, but I was not proud that I lost my cool during a show. The bouncer ended up saying something to the table that made them shut up for the rest of the show and the rest of the show ended as a success.

There was a fear that her friends were going to try and attack me after the show. They even went so far as to have a bouncer stand next to me when I was trying to sell T-Shirts. Fortunately, nothing happened and all was good.

The headliner was extremely solid and a lot of fun to work with. His name is Andrew Kennedy and he is from CT. He has been on Comedy Central twice and even had a pilot made on his life. A great guy to hang out with, too. He really made me want to work harder to be a better comic.
Overall it was a great time and a great club. The staff was friendly and nice; the crowds were also cool even though it was one of the smaller crowds they had all year (being the weekend before X-Mas). I look forward to going out there again.

The weekend before New Years and New Year's was spent performing in Saint Cloud, MN. I had been at this club a ton of times. I am actually hoping to be out there next year as the headliner (which I think will finally happen). It ended up being a last minute booking because my New Years fell through. The venue we were supposed to perform at ended up cancelling just a few weeks before the show. That really blew because it was a lot closer to home and the show time was going to be 8 (St. Cloud was 10). So I did not get home until 2:30 on New Year's morning. New Years ended up being a rough day because of how little of sleep I got.

Friday Night in St. Cloud was fun. Saturday was very light (14 people) but New Years was a lot of fun. People were not out of hand and they were willing to have a good time. Overall, it was a fun weekend in Saint Cloud.

The headliner was the Fryman. It was my first time working with him and we was a cool guy. We had fun talking football all weekend. I think he got sick of me praising the Patriots all weekend.

X-Mas & Quinlan
Christmas day was great. We went to Holly's parent's house on the farm with my mother. It was a good time because it was Quinlan's first X-mas. Even though he doesn't know about Santa yet, he gets fired up to play with the wrapping paper. He also loves to be around people, so the family X-Mas is heaven to him. He barely slept at all, yet he never fussed. He just loves to be around people.

The whole week was great because I took it off of work. It was so nice to spend a ton of time with Quinlan. I felt we bonded great all week and Quinlan started to actually appreciate who I am and get excited to see me. I got him smiling and giggling at me a lot easier than it used to be.

Quinlan is also getting really big. He is no longer a peanut. We have no clue how much he actually weighs, but you can tell he is filling out nicely. He is also developing his personality a bit. He is actually a bit of a character, just like his Dad.

The Patriots
What can I say that hasn't already been said? They went 16-0 in the regular season, something I thought they would never do. Now, they MUST win it all or it will be for nothing. They are the favorite to win it all, but it will be a hard road to get there. So long as they do not make uncharacteristic mistakes and their defense makes a few plays here and there, they should make to the Super Bowl.

This week, they get the Jacksonville Jaguars who are everyone's sweethearts right now. They feature a top notch running game with Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew. Their QB, David Garrard, has had a very solid, mistake-free year but came down to earth a little against Pittsburgh. While I think he is a solid QB, I don't quite think he is ready for the playoffs. The Jaguar's defense is solid, but it is very banged up. I think the Patriots will struggle against the run, but I think they will do enough on offense (mostly passing) to win the game. Then the face the Colts in a rematch in the AFC Championship game, but this time it will be in Foxboro!!!

I am in a dilemma. I have a show the night of the game. So I went out and bought a TiVo unit to watch the game. I will be able to watch the 1st hour of the game, and then I have to not listen to the radio or check out a TV so I can go home after the show and watch the game.

The bummer of the TiVo unit is that I found out that it does not use its dual tuner for satellite TV. I can only record what I am watching. What is the point of that???? The whole point of using TiVo or DVR is to be able to record while you watch something else. So now I have to try and find out if I can return the unit and the wireless adapter. What a pain in the arse.

Ankle

2007-12-02T19:12:00.000-08:00

What a bummer of a weekend. A month or two ago, I won a local Poker tournament to get an entry into the finals for a trip to Vegas. There were to be 20 "winners" who would face off this Saturday at St. Croix Casino in Turtle Lake, WI. I was all fired up to play, maybe even go a little early to play a little poker at the real tables before hand. I had no show Saturday Night, so there was no need to rush out.

A snow storm was coming in Saturday and they were threatening 10+ inches of snow starting at around noon (the tourney was to start at 5:00). Holly and my mother were both concerned about me driving on the back roads of WI to the casino. It is a little over an hour if the conditions are fine, so it would probably take me 2+ hours to get there because the snow started coming down at 9:00 a.m.

Before I left, I decided to do a few things around the house that I had been putting off for a while. I needed to change the oil in the snow blower, take the furniture off the back deck, and bring in the garden hoses. Yes, I was very late on all of these. As I was carrying the four folding chairs from the back deck, I was waling along the retaining wall that declines as you go to the front of my house. As I went down far enough to where I thought I could just jump down (maybe 9 inches off the ground), I heard and felt my ankle snap and I fell over with the chairs in my hand. A million things ran through my mind as I was falling over, mainly "You are an idiot."

Holly was feeding Quinlan, it was about 10 degrees out and I was only wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. I was a little scared that I was stuck outside until Holly realized that I was out for too long. I was also nervous that I broke my ankle. Something I was very sure of because of the sound I heard as I rolled the ankle. I stood up and limped into the house while supporting myself with the retaining wall and then the cars in the garage. I ended up making it to my couch in the family room and raised my foot onto the couch. It hurt like hell.

Then the weird thing happened. I started having my fingers and head feel cold and numb. Next thing I know I am waking up in a panic. I had no clue where I was or what was going on. I had apparently passed out. That freaked me out because why was I passing out over a rolled ankle? Holly eventually finished with Quinlan and I called her down to the family room. I told her what happened and she called my mother to bring me to the hospital (it was too much to try and bring me and Quinlan to the hospital).

We went and waited only for a little bit, which is surprising because I remember going to the ER as a kid and waiting 3+ hours. We did some X-rays and we found that I did not break it, but there is a chance I tore some ligaments. We will not know for a little bit because you have to wait and see if it heals OK over the course of the week. Most likely, it is just a nasty sprain. I hope there is no ligament damage because that requires surgery.

With the combination of the ankle and worsening weather, I ended up staying hope and resting the ankle all day Saturday and Sunday. It drove me nuts to wonder what would have happened in the tournament. Odds are that I would not have won, but it would have been nice to give it a shot. I think I could have driven with the ankle, but my concern was if I spun out. How the hell would I get out of a ditch with a bum ankle?

This is what I get for procrastinating so badly. Fricking idiot.

Thanksgiving Update

2007-11-22T22:51:00.000-08:00

I am totally full. Going over to my mother in law's house for the holidays can be very hard on my health. She is an awesome cook and makes insanely good cookies and pies. I do not have enough will power or intelligence to resist over eating. Today was the same as all other holidays there. I ate too much turkey, too much pie and too many cookies. It is 10:00 at night and I think I am going to die.

It was cool to have Quinlan's 1st Thanksgiving. He was awesome all day. He was not fussy at all, he loves the attention that everyone gives and boy does he get attention. He doesn't mind anyone holding him, whether it is his parents, grandparents or cousins, he is cool with it. He played most of the day and took two really quick naps on Daddy's chest. It is so cool to have him sleep on me. It is such a fun bonding thing; the only bad thing is that he rarely sleeps long when he sleeps on me. Today was no different; he only got to sleep on me for 20 and 30 minutes. He is pretty light sleeper. It is hard for him to help it, that is just the way he is. Unfortunately, there are people who feel the need to crap on Holly for him being a light sleeper. Apparently Holly is supposed to set off fireworks while Quinlan slept when he was 3 months.

That is the one tough thing about raising a kid. Some people feel the need to criticize the way you raise your child. Actually, I rarely get the brunt of the criticism, it is mostly Holly. She gets crap from other women who think they are the perfect parents. I have found that every child is different and every parent is different. Unless someone is doing something grossly wrong (like smoking in the car with the kid, not using seat belts, beating the shit out of them, etc.), it is best to keep your comments to yourself. A buddy of mine's wife said the best thing to me this past weekend when I was in Boston, you will learn for yourself what is the best way to raise your child on your own. You can listen to every friend or family member or read every book, but in the end you will learn what works for your kid and when you are ready to do certain things (like letting him cry it out when he goes to bed).

Personally, I think Holly is doing a wonderful job and I could not think of any way she could be a better mother. So it kind of annoys me when people criticize the way she raises Quinlan whether it is bluntly or (more commonly) passive aggressively. I have yet to meet someone that I felt was a flawless parent. Every parent does something that I personally do not agree with. That does not mean that I am a better parent or what they are doing is not the right thing to do. It is just different that what I feel is cool with my kid. But I feel the best thing to do is to keep the comments of their parenting style to myself because who am I to tell them what they are doing with their own kid is right or wrong?

I do not mind when people share what they did with their kids. It is cool to hear what worked for others. Sometimes you hear something that you think might work for your own kid, sometimes you don't. The key thing is, they are not ordering you to raise your child like they did theirs. I don't like it when people tell me that I am "supposed" to do a certain thing with regard to raising my child. They have no clue what works with Quinlan or what does not work with him. That is our job to do.

Wow, that was more whining than I normally do. I better quit while I am ahead.

Boston

I was in Boston last weekend for my buddy Greg's wedding. Great times. It was great to see friends again. It is always hard to fit all the time in to see everyone you want to. I did get to see most of the usual suspects as well as a few I usually don't get to see (Christy!!). The weekend went by quick and I was sick with a cold the majority of the weekend but it was a blast. This should be the last wedding for a while, so I do not have any definite plans to head back. I am going to try and head back for the annual golf trip with the guys. They now go to New Hampshire which is much cooler than the Cape. I have to admit, I hated the Cape. I do not know why, but I always did.

Congrats to Greg! You look happy and your wife seems like a great gal. Have fun making babies.

Comedy

This weekend should be fun shows. I am closing shows in Mankato Friday night and Forest Lake on Saturday night. I am working for most likely my favorite booker in the Midwest, Rox. Her shows are always a blast and she is so fun to work with. I get fired up to do shows for her because she sees the shows and she appreciates what I do. So many of the shows I do, the bookers never see it and it is hard for them to appreciate what I bring to the table by not seeing me. I am finally on that level where I can start closing rooms (and I do here and there), but with some bookers they are not seeing me progress and they are not seeing some of the headliners struggle to follow me. It is frustrating to know I can close a room (granted not as well as the guys that have been doing it a long time), but typically I do a really good job and there are several times I am being approached by crowd members and club owners and they are saying I should be "the last guy." I wish this stuff would get back to the bookers so I can start making more money headlining and making the long trips to some of these shows more worthwhile. I figure if I keep plugging away and always improve, my time will come. No matter what, it is still a ton of fun for me and I enjoy the majority of it.

Who knows, maybe one of these days I will finally get on TV.

Well, I better get going. It is getting late and I need to drive 2 hours to my show tomorrow night (not including stopping at stores to see how much Plasma TV's are on sale for and maybe playing a little poker on the way to Mankato).

Red Sox are the Champs!!

2007-11-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

Red Sox
I used to strongly believe that I would not witness the Red Sox win a championship in my lifetime. Considering that my grandfather never got to see the Red Sox win it (they had last won it when he was 2 years old), I figured the same fate would fall upon me. I tried to give up on them before 2004. Even in 2003 when Grady Little single handedly gave the championship away by keeping Pedro in when EVERYONE knew he was toast, I somehow could not get away.

That was a tough night. I was still recovering from my back surgery (titanium rods installed onto my spine) and I was sitting in my recliner (which was very hard to get in and out of at the time). It was game seven in the ALCS. Pedro pitched an excellent game, but his pitch count broke 100. There were established statistics that showed that batters did very well against Pedro when he pitched more than a 100 pitches, yet Pedro was coming out in the 8th to pitch to the Yankees. He had a two run lead at the time. Personally, I would have yanked Pedro before the 8th, but out he came. Maybe Grady knew something we didn't, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. When Pedro gave up two hits to the 1st two batters, it was obvious he did not have it. Out came Grady to the mound, I assumed to say "Thanks for pitching a great game, Pedro" and bring out someone from the bullpen. When I saw Grady walking back to the dugout, I leaped off of my recliner and yelled at the TV (while almost sending myself back into the hospital). I could not believe that Pedro was left into the game. Not only did Pedro give an RBI hit, he was STILL left in to allow the tying run to score. It was mind blowing. It ended up going into extra innings and Aaron Boone ended up hitting a walk off home run against Wakefield. Everyone seems to remember "Aaron Bleeping Boone," or they remember Wakefield giving up the final pitch. Not me, I will always remember Grady. When Boone hit the home run, I just turned off the TV with no reaction. I knew they were going to lose when they tied it in the 8th. I said to myself, "I am done with this fucking team. No more of this crap." I was sick of putting my heart into a team that year in and year out breaks my heart.

I really thought I gave up on them, until Spring Training came and there I was getting sucked back in. They signed Curt Schilling made me wonder. Sure enough, as the season went on I was fully sucked back in. The Red Sox again met the Yankees in the ALCS. The Yankees came right out to take a 3-0 lead in the series. Not only was that awful, they got totally blown out by more than 10 runs in game 3. After game 3, I actually said, "I will not raise my child a Red Sox fan." I thought it would be child abuse to raise a child a Red Sox fan after what they had done to me. I tried to not watch game 4 because I thought they were going to be swept. Fortunately, I had a show in Mankato and I missed most of the game. I did get to see the 9th inning when Dave Roberts stole 2nd in the 9th inning and then scored on a Bill Mueller single. It went into extra innings and I listened to it on the way home and listened as Ortiz launched a walk off home run. Nice, they were not going to be swept. But I was still angry at the Red Sox, because they were sucking me back in and giving me a glimmer of hope.

They ended up going on and performed the greatest comeback in the history of sports and beat the Yankees to go on to the World Series. I had no doubt they would kill the Cardinals and they ended up sweeping them. It was unbelievable. I had no clue what to feel because this was something I never thought I would see. I got a little sad because I knew my grandfather missed it. He loved the Red Sox and he would have loved to have seen a championship, but he died in 2001. It also sucked because it was my 1st year in Wisconsin; I was not able to celebrate with friends.
Fast forward to last week when the Red Sox came back from a 3-1 series deficit to beat the Indians in the ALCS. They then went on a swept the overmatched Rockies in the World Series. It was not near as powerful. When the playoffs started, I EXPECTED the Red Sox to win it all. How odd is that? It is a weird feeling to have grown up a Boston sports fan and be cocky. We were so used to having our hearts broken by all our teams (except the Celtics in the 80's); we are not used to expecting our teams to succeed.

Not only has the Red Sox won two titles in 4 years, they have positioned themselves to continue to win by having a bunch of young talent. Not only do we have one of (if not THE) best pitchers in the league in Josh Beckett, but we also have Dice-K who should pitch better next year after a year of getting used to the US. Papelbon has turned into a stud in the bullpen with Oakajima. Then there are also the young future star pitchers like Lester and Bucholtz. Add in the young talent in the field like Ellsbury, Pedroia and Youkalis and this is a team that should compete for a while.

I love the Red Sox right now. Hopefully, they do not make a play for A-Rod (I think they will sign Lowell). Did you know that Dice-K had more playoff RBI's (2) than A-Rod (1)? Screw you, Gay-Rod.

Patriots
This week is the biggest game of the year in football. The Patriots and the Colts face off in the battle of the unbeaten. The game is in Indy and the Patriots are favored by 5.5 points. Every media outlet is talking about the game and the proper hype is being applied. The only annoying thing is the Manning/Brady comparisons. Even though Manning is great, I still can not understand how people can not have Brady as the 1 QB in the NFL. Brady has succeeded in the NFL with pedestrian WR's while Manning was always surrounded by awesome talent. Now that Brady has equal talent, he is blowing away Manning's numbers. Even when Manning finally won the title last year, he did it throwing only 3 TD's and 7 INT's during the playoffs. He got completely carried by his defense and Bob Sanders (the true MVP of the Colts). How does a QB throw 7 INT's during a Super Bowl run and he is considered on the same level as Brady who has won 3 Super Bowls with less than 7 INT's COMBINED over those three playoff years.

I think it will be a good game and a high scorer. I think the Patriots defense is a little over-rated and the Colts will be able to move the ball, especially Joseph Addai. But I think the Patriots will just score more. Maroney should have a solid day and Moss will haul in a TD or two. Brady will have at least 3 TD's. I doubt it will be a blow out, but damn that would be fun to see the Patriots destroy the Colts in the Dome.

Celtics
Tonight the season kicked off with the new big three. Garnett and Allen were on the court with Pierce and they did not disappoint. They kicked the snot out of the Wizards and all three had good games (including Garnett's 20 rebounds). They should finish near the top of the conference in the end and have a chance at the Finals. I am interested in the Celtics for the 1st time in a while. It will be fun to watch Garnett in green.

Boston Sports

2007-10-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

Damn, it feels good be a Boston fan!! The Red Sox just came back from a 3-1 deficit against a solid team, the Patriots continued their amazing dominance, the Celtics have three All Star starters for the 1st time since the glory days and the Boston College Eagles are ranked 2. Now, if only the Bruins could get their shit together, it would complete the cycle.

The Red Sox

The Red Sox are a wild team to follow. They can bring you from complete lows to complete highs. Case in point, after game 4 when the Red Sox got dominated by a meatball pitcher (Byrd), I wanted to throw up. I was criticizing them to my co-workers and whining about them with fellow Red Sox fans. The only hope I had was knowing that Beckett was pitching game 5 and the series would go back to Boston if Beckett won.

Beckett has turned into a true stud 1 pitcher. When he pitches, you stand a VERY good chance to see the Red Sox win, especially in the playoffs. Beckett is amazing when it comes to the post season, not only is he a dominate pitcher in the regular season (he should win the Cy Young award this year), he is even better in the post season. He actually has more career post season shutouts than he has regular season shutouts. Not all top pitchers are like that. A lot of them fold under pressure, like C.C. Sabathia, Fausto Carmona and John Lackey did (all alleged Cy Young candidates). Beckett rises to the occasion and has a 1.17 ERA for this year's playoffs so far.

Despite the insane role that the Colorado Rockies are on, I truly think the Red Sox will beat them up. I know the Rockies are playing great baseball, but there are three reasons why I think the Rockies do not stand a chance:

1) The Rockies play in the National League. The National is far weaker than the American League. It is essentially Quadruple-A baseball. Being the best team of the weaker division is not all that impressive. In fact, I think all American League playoff teams (Angels, Red Sox, Indians and the Yank-mees) are better than the Rockies.

2) The Rockies have been sitting idle for the past week. This can not be minimized. They needed to be playing another game right off the bat. Now they have had a ton of time to have their flames die out. Add in the fact that it was snowing in Colorado this week and the Rockies are frigid.

3) The Red Sox are just a better team. They have better pitching and hitting. All things equal, I still think the Red Sox win.

I am frustrated though that the first game is this Wednesday. I have a Statistics class on Wednesday Nights and I will be going out of my mind if I am missing the game. The only benefit is that we have a quiz, so typically class ends sooner. Hopefully I can be in the car by 7:00 so I can at least listen to the 1st few innings in the car.

The Celtics

They should be an interesting team to follow this year. I am not as sold on them as a lot of people are. I think they will be significantly better (how can they not be?), and they will definitely be more fun to follow. But I worry about the chemistry of the big guys - Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. They are all used to being the top guy on their teams; will they be able to share the load with another top dog? I don't know. The only one that I am pretty sure that will have no problem is Kevin Garnett. Everyone here in the Minnesota area loves him and they say he is a team player. I do not know enough about Allen, so I have no clue what kind of guy he is. I would think Pierce could handle it, but it is hard to tell with him.

I am also concerned with their ages. They are all over the age of 30 and have gotten dinged up a little over the last two years. In basketball, guys really start to slow down after the age of 30. Hopefully these guys still have some tank in the gas for the next two years because that is what this team is built for, the next two years. If this experiment fails, Ainge will be gone and the Celtics will suck for another 10 years.

The thing that helps the Celtics chances is that they play in the inferior conference (Eastern). Like the National League in baseball, the Eastern conference is filled with mediocre teams while all the top teams (Spurs, Mavericks, etc.) are in the West.

In the end, they will be a top 4 team in the Eastern conference and have a chance at the finals IF everyone stays healthy, they click together, and they have a point guard to bring the ball up the court and give it to the right top dog. The guard will have 3 guys to choose from, which is nice.

The Patriots

What else can I say about them that hasn't been mentioned in EVERY media outlet this year? After 7 weeks, they are hands down the best team in football. They are not only undefeated, they are DESTROYING teams in the NFL. Their closest game was against the Browns in which they "only" won by 17 points.

Moss has been everything we dreamed he would be and more. No one truly knew what to expect because of the preseason when he was allegedly hurt all preseason. Then he came into the Jets game and went off. He has been unbelievable since. In 7 games, he already has 732 yards and 10 TD's. Insane numbers. He has made plays that you watch with your mouth open and say, "How the hell do you defend that???" He and Brady are a lethal tandem.

Speaking of Brady look at these stats AFTER 7 WEEKS!!!!!

- Brady has 27 TD's. His season high is 28 TD's and he is on pace for 62 TD's. The record (set by Manning in 2004) is 49.
- He is on pace for 4,857 yards, his career high is 4,110.
- His QB rating is 137.9, the record is 121.1.
- His completion percentage is 73.8. Are you kidding me????

His is having an unbelievable year and he is showing any doubters who the best QB in the league is. I have always felt that he was easily the best QB in the league (including Mr. Manning) because of his success with mediocre weapons around him. It used to frustrate me that people thought Manning was better because he put up better stats. No one would acknowledge that Manning's weapons were ten times better than Brady's. I used to say that if Brady had weapons equal to Manning's, Brady would post equal or better numbers. Well, he got the weapons and he is completely out performing Manning in every aspect of the game (and Manning is great).

If Brady wins another title and actually breaks the TD record, people will start to argue that he is the best ever. I will be one of the people claiming that he is the best ever if he does it because I already think he is one of the best ever. I might even dare say that he is already in the top five.

At some point, someone has to stop the Patriots for at least one week. Even though they are the best team in the league, no one goes undefeated in the 16 game season. The Bears didn't in 1985, the 90's Cowboys didn't, and even the old Montana 49er's couldn't do it. At some point, there will be some freak turnovers and it will cost the Patriots a game. Or a team you do not expect will play way over their head and keep up with the Patriots and play mistake-free ball. I would be shocked though if the Patriots lose more than two games and I actually would be kind of surprised if they lose two (assuming there are no injuries). The game that will be VERY interesting will be the Colts game in two weeks. It sucks that it is in the Dome again, but I still think the Patriots will win in a shootout. I think it will be a 38-34 game. Even though the Pats defense is good, I think Manning can move the ball on them. They are a good defense, but not as great as everyone makes them out to be. You can move the ball on them.

In the end, the Patriots WILL win their 4th Super Bowl. They WILL be considered the best team in the history of the NFL. Brady WILL win the MVP and he WILL be considered the best QB ever.

I really would love to keep going with my mental masturbation of Boston sports, but it is late. I need to go to bed because I am now an old man.

God, I love being a Boston sports fan right now (I never even got to talk about the Eagles being 2 in the country. Are you shitting me?????)

Boston...Again

2007-10-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

Finally, after working at my current job for almost 3 and a half years, I finally got a business trip to Boston. I have been to the UK four times, the rest of Europe twice for the company, I have gone to San Fransisco twice and also Dallas, Miami and Indianapolis for the company, but never Boston. I finally got to go for a Trade Show in Boston. It worked out perfect because we had a wedding to go to the following weekend anyways, so I saved on MY airfare (even though the need for a rental car offset the savings).

I had to work from Monday to Thursday, so I booked a flight for the Friday before and returning the Monday after. Since I had to work 4 days, I figured I would spend 10 days out there. Makes sense, right? Right?

So I flew on Friday and went right up to Beverly, to hang with my buddy John and his wife, Melissa and his super friendly 1-year old, Ray. We treated ourselves to some Nick’s Roast Beef. Personally, I dig the Super Beef (on the onion roll) with a slice of American cheese and ketchup . This place has the best roast beef sandwiches in the world, even though there is a ton of good roast beef places in the “North Shore” (i.e. Kelly’s in Rever and Saugus, Supreme’s in Danvers, Bill and Bob’s in Salem, etc.). You can not get those kind of sandwiches in the Midwest. The closest thing to them is Arby’s and I would rather like my cat’s taint than eat their sandwiches.

Saturday, I drove up to Methuen to visit an old high school friend. I hadn’t seen him in at least 10 years even though we had talked through email a few times and even on the phone twice. He is thinking of getting into comedy and it was fun to talk about how you get in while drinking beers at the 99. I forgot how cool he was and how funny he was, so I am fired up for hearing how his venture into comedy goes. After hanging with him, I went up to see goofy friend, Jay. He is one of those friends who I act 100 times more retarded than I normally do. We really act like 12 years together, it is really pathetic. His wife, Ghazel cooked an awesome salmon dinner and we just chilled out all night.

Sunday was probably one of the highlights of the weekend. My buddy Matt, had a cookout at his house in Plainville. Exciting sounding town, huh? Trust me, it lives up to the title. But Matty’s house was a blast because I got to see most of the college crowd, but I also got to see their kids. Jeff and Dana, Jay and Ghazel, Sean and Kim, Erin and Chris, Greg, Rob and Nikki, Karen and Rich, and Carol all showed up to Matty and Heathers. Everyone’s kids were adorable and pretty darn funny. They had a blast because Matty rented one of those inflatable bouncy things that the kids can climb into and jump around. Greg and I thought it would be a good idea to climb in and hop around. That turned out to be way harder than in looked. We were completely out of breath and bitching about our knees within 5 minutes. I think I heard CJ (Sluggo’s oldest) whisper “pussy” as I stumbled off the toy.

Monday I had to set up our booth in Boston. It was in the Hynes Convention Center attached to the Prudential Tower. It was a lot more work than I thought it would be, but we finished in enough time for me to wolf down some dinner, change and head back to the show for 2 hours before we headed out and watched the Patriots kill the Bengals.

The cool thing about this show that went till Wednesday evening was that it was a Millipore reunion. I used to work at Millipore before I moved to the wild Midwest. It seemed like half the show was either current Millipore employees, or ex-Millipore employees (like myself). Two of my best friends from the Millipore days, Jon and Matt, we there and it was cool to catch up with them. We went to some of the seminars together, we grabbed lunch one of the days and Matt came out with us Monday night to watch the Patriots kill the Bengals (did I mention that the Patriots won?).
Tuesday Night I went to the North End with two co-workers and had some really cool Italian food. Wednesday we tore down the booth and I scrambled to meet Rob and Nikki at Boston Beer Works to watch the Red Sox game. It as killing me that the game started at 6:30, but I was pretty sure I could make it close to the start of the game and I was fired up to have my favorite beer, Pumpkinhead Ale. I soon found out that they had no Pumpkinhead (DAMMIT!!!!!). But I made in time to see the game. Rob and Nikki caught up and we had a blast. When the game ended, we had to catch our trains (mine to Beverly, Rob’s to Walpole). We each had a train for 10:30, but I started talking shit about how cool it would be to hang out for another 2 hours and catch the 12:30 trains. Rob has that sparkle in his eye that he was on board, fortunately his girlfriend, Nikki has more intelligence than us and recommended that we call it a night. She was right because I was ready to fall asleep as I got onto the train. Also, if I drank for another two hours, getting up for customer calls the next day would have been a whole lot harder.

Thursday, I went Kent (our Sales guys and avid Patriots and Red Sox fan) to my old stopping grounds, Millipore. More of the reuinion stuff. It was really cool to see some old faces and see the new facility. The visits took up most of the day and I ended up back in Beverly to catch up with an old friend, Michele. We caught up at Bertucci’s (kick ass pizza) and she brought her adorable little 3 year old girl, Kaitlyn. Her daughter was an absolute cutie and extremely friendly. Michele and I caught up as Kaitlyn got to realize how childish I am (which I think she enjoyed).

Friday was my scary day because that was when Holly and Quinlan were coming to Boston. I say scary because I was petrified on how Quinlan would like the flight. I was worried that he would have a three hour meltdown that he would hold a grudge for into his college years. There was a delay on the runway in Minneapolis and they landed an hour after schedule. He ended up being awesome on the plane and he was cute as a button when they came off of the gate. We brought him to Kowloons (so Daddy could get the best chicken fingers on the planet) and then to Beverly so he could meet John, Melisssa and Ray. Later that night, John and I went to his brothers where the two of them and their friends beat me up in poker (I finished 2nd once out of 4 games, I suck).

Saturday, Holly and I took off for the wedding. We checked into the hotel in Milford, let Quinlan nap and then brought him to my college friend Liz’s house in Millis. Unfortunately, we rarely get to see Liz when we fly home, so this was cool to see her, plus I get to meet her baby for the first time and see Meredith for the 2nd time. Both of her girls are adorable (naturally). Liz agreed to watch Quinlan while we went to the wedding and I kept worrying the whole night that the little guy would be a wreck for her. I guess he did great (or so she claims), and we left the wedding a little early to grab him. By the time we got back to the hotel, we were toast. Some of the wedding guests were partying in the lobby, but I had nothing in me. The wedding itself was fun because we got to hang with Matt and Heather, Sluggo and Shannon, Rita and Rob, Sean and Kim and Carol. Not to mention watch Chris and Erin tie the knot.

Sunday was a lazy day. We went to Rob’s place in Walpole and watched the Patriots beat the Browns and the Red Sox complete the sweep of the Angels. It was a blast to watch the games on HDTV and hang out with a friend who I don’t get to see as much as we should. We ended the week back in Beverly so we could get up at 3:15 for our flight the next day.

It was insane how quick the week went by. What kills me is that even though I ran around like crazy, got to a see a ton of people, I missed out on seeing some people I was hoping to see. I really wish I could have seen Lashy and Christy, but time never permitted. One thing about the week is that I do not think I had a healthy meal the whole week. I ate about as bad as I have ever eaten over the course of a week. I had a ton of Dunkin Donuts iced coffees, a few chocolate glazed donuts, three steak and cheese subs, two super beefs at Nick’s, Italian food in the North End as well as Tiramisu at Mikes, Dunkin Donuts breakfast sandwichs, appetizers at Champs, Finnish pancakes from Melissa, pizza at Bertucci’s, chicken fingers and a scallion pie at Kowloons, etc. I think the only decent meals were the salmon from Ghazel and the turkey tips at Beer works. I was already on an awful role with eating the two months before, but last week really went over the deep end. I think I gained 5 to 10 pounds last week (I wish I was lying). I actually scheduled a physical for Monday when I came back.

Grandmother and Boston

2007-08-22T20:27:00.000-07:00

Sadly, my grandmother passed away last week at the ripe age of 90 years old. It was a weird feeling because she has been in a rough state for some time now. I have actually wished she would pass away for a few years now because it killed me to see her in the state she has been. She stopped recognizing me a few years ago and really didn't understand what was going on. It was torture to go to the nursing home and see her like that when I went home to visit.

When I got the news that she was on her last few days, it hurt a lot, yet it was oddly relieving. When I got the actual news she died from my uncle, I cried because I realized that she would never get to meet Quinlan. I always wished my grandparents could meet a child of mine because they would have made awesome great grandparents. But sadly, they did not, but I get to know that there are too people looking after little Hope in the afterlife.

My Grandmother's death caused my mother and me to scramble to see if we could get a flight to Boston within a day or two. I guess the airlines do not care anymore about a death in the family. US Air and Delta do not offer bereavement fairs and Northwest offers a fair of $565 (even though you could book it normally for $550). I ended up having enough miles to fly for free with a higher rate (35,000 points versus the normal 25,000). My mother was also able to get a flight through her Delta miles. We did not have to pay for our flight which was a HUGE bonus. My mother and I took off Wednesday on the same flight, but different sections of the plane.

We rented a car that cost $380, ouch. They really pork you now-a-days for those rental cars. I prepaid the gas because I figured my mother wouldn't pull over for gas at 4:30 in the morning on Monday when she would be going in on her own. She ended up getting a flight out on Saturday and IU never used up the tank of gas. The car was super efficient and I mostly drove around Beverly the whole week.

It was weird, I was home for my Grandmother's funeral, but it almost felt like a mini-vacation. I stayed with my friends John and Melissa every night but Saturday Night. They are about as good of friends as anyone could ask for. They never hesitate to lend me the bedroom and they are a ton of fun to hang out with. They also love Nick's Roast Beef, so all I have to do is buy them some Nick's (and of course myself some) and I am all set. What a deal. It was also great to meet their little guy, Ray, who is 11 months old. He was a real cutie and extremely friendly. Very smiley and not scared of me at all. We plan on seeing him again in October and hopefully, he can meet Quinlan.

The planning of my Grandmother's funeral was pretty easy. My mother and Uncle did most of the work and we had to meet the minister on Thursday. He was a very nice guy, but GOD could he talk. He kept hitting these weird tangents that included old people he knew in the church and the history of his great grandfather. I am here for my grandmother's funeral, who gives a shit about your great grandfather????? He also was apparently drinking a lot of fruit punch because he mouth was completely red. It looked like he ate a small puppy before we came in. It was creepy. Fortunately, he did a bang-up job for my grandmother's funeral at the grave site. I was very pleased.

The week included me eating terribly. I miss the great food out there so much. Our 1st stop after the airport on Wednesday was to stop at Kowloon's on Route 1 in Saugus. BEST Chinese food in the country. My mother never tried it (I have no clue why not) and loved it. That says a lot because she can get shee shee poo poo with her Chinese food. We got chicken fingers, pork lo mien and a scallion pie. The chicken fingers are very lightly battered, so when you bit into it, it is mostly chicken unlike other places where it is all breading with a marble of meat. The lo mien is with thick noodles, a bunch of veggies and a thick sauce. It was absolute heaven. The only way it could have been better was if I was sucking down a scorpion bowl, but I had to drive.

I also got to eat Nick's Roast Beef twice. I miss a real roast beef sandwich. You can not get that in the Midwest. All they have is Arby's and I'd rather eat my cat's shit. I also got a Steak and Cheese sub at Super Sub in Beverly. They put on raw meat and cook it fresh. They also give you a ton of meat (unlike Subway). You know there is a lot of meat when they give you a fork with it. I also drank at least 10 Dunkin Donuts Iced Coffees and 5 Chocolate Glazed donuts over the course of the week. Again, you can not get that out here. I love the Midwest, but their food options blow…….except for my mother in law's cooking.

Another pleasure of the week was I got to see the kid my mother used to baby sit from the age of 1 to about 8 or 9, Brian. I hadn't seen him in a few years and that was the 1st time in a few years. He is now on the verge of turning 16 and I kind of worried that he would be a typical teenage snot. He wasn't. He was an extremely good kid and is well on his way to being a good guy. We didn't get to talk a whole lot, but he was very outgoing and willing to laugh at my stupid jokes. I had a lot of fun talking to him for the brief amount of time I was around him and wished I got to hang out with him longer. It did make me feel old because I met him when he was one and we were "buddies." Now, he is as tall as I am and could probably kick my butt.

The final night was a blast. A bunch of the college buddies caught up at Sluggo's house in Waltham for poker. I had won $30 the night before at John's and I was hoping to have the run continue. It did and I took home and extra $80. It was also a blast because most of the guys came out (Matty, Jay, Jeff, Sean and Kevin). There was a ton of inappropriate jokes and tons of laughing. It was like old times. I ended up going to sleep after 4 or 5 rum and cokes at 1:45 and woke up at 3:30 to head into the airport for my 6:00 a.m. flight. That was pretty rough, but at least it was first class and I was able to see my buddy (Quinlan) at the airport.

To be honest, if it wasn't for the food and the friends, I wouldn't miss Boston at all. I hated the driving. I forgot how stupidly aggressive they can be on the road. I also forgot how tight and windy the roads are. But, I can not wait to spend over a week out there in October when I have to travel for work.

Updates

2007-08-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

Baby
It feels like eternity since I last posted. I guess life as a Dad can be a bit busy. With Quinlan, work, comedy and school, it can be hard to find the time or desire to sit down and ramble with my keyboard.

Quinlan is doing really good. He has gotten over the colic so he does not cry near as much as he used to, which is a huge relief. He is still a bit on the fussy side, but it is not near as bad as it used to be. He is getting big; he was 11.5 pounds 3 weeks ago, so he has to be pushing 13 pounds by now. He is getting cuter and cuter by the day. He smiles on occasion, more for Mommy than for me. He is pretty mellow in general. He just mostly just looks at me as if to say, "Who is this crazy man?" When he does smile, it is for a little bit.

He can actually stand with help which is pretty impressive. He sleeps through most of the night, but puts up a good fight in the beginning. Holly has gotten awesome with figuring out how to get him to relax enough to go to sleep. A LOVES the bath tube. I don't think he ever cries when he is in there, though he cries the minute he comes out.

He hates the car though. Either the car or the car seat, we are not sure which. He usually starts crying when you tighten the straps of the car seat, and then continues for most of the ride. It is pretty stressful for Holly because she wants to get out of the house, but she is scared to go out for fear of him freaking out so she stays in probably more than she should. We ended up going out and buying him a new car seat, one that he would use for a long time anyways to see if he likes it better, but we haven't tried it yet. Not sure if it will make any difference. I think Holly just needs to get out more with him and have him get used to the car in general.

I am still loving the fact that Holly is staying home with him. It is worth the lack of 2nd income and cooler cars. I can't describe the feeling of knowing that a parent is around your child at all times. I really feel bad for people who have to have both parents work, but I understand why many do. It is hard to get by on one income. I think we can because we live in Wisconsin and we live within our means. We do not drive new cars, we have a modest home and we do not carry credit card debt. I couldn't be happier with our situation.

Comedy
Comedy has been a little slow this summer, but that is because summer is slow in general and I wasn't really beating down bookers doors for work. I was content with spending time with my new little guy. I will continue to do comedy on the weekends, but the travel radius will get a little tighter and I will try to do the better gigs as opposed to the weaker ones with not all that hot pay.
One cool thing is I get to work with Michael Winslow this weekend. He is the guy that made the funny sounds in the Police Academy movies. I get to open for him at a casino in northern Iowa. Hopefully he is an OK guy. I worry that he is one of those grumpy comics because people recognize him for the movies he did 20 years ago. But then again, I hear is doing quite well for himself, so he could one of those comics who is just glad to be able to make a wonderful living telling jokes. We will soon find out.

Boston
I get to go back to Boston for a week in October for a Trade Show in Boston and then a friend of ours wedding the following weekend. Holly and I are in a big debate on what to do with her and Quinlan. She doesn't want to lave him behind and come out to Boston without him. This is because she is scared about losing her milk supply as well as not being able to be away from him for any period of time. She is also worried about bringing him because he could be miserable the whole trip. She is worried that he will be a mess the whole time out there and it won't be fair for him. We are torn. Hopefully we figure it out because I would love to have her out there with me. It will be weird being away from them for that long. I could potentially be gone for over a week. While I love the idea of being back in Boston for a week, I will miss those two a great deal.

Boston Sports
Well the Celtics make a blockbuster deal. They acquired Kevin Garnett from the Timberwolves this past week. He is one of the top players in the NBA, but he is 31 years old and is in the twilight of his career. I still think he has plenty left in the tank. It is an interesting trade because it essentially involves 7 players (5 actual players and two draft picks) for one player, but one REALLY good player. When they had the draft, the Celtics traded the 5 pick and other players for Ray Allen, who is a top scorer, but he is 32. I was blown away with the Celtics that they were obviously giving away their future for an over the hill scorer. But with Pierce, Allen and Garnett, this all of a sudden is an interesting team. They will have three big time players, but no one else. I am curious how this season will pan out. I think they are obviously better, and they are obviously a playoff team, but I am not ready to put them into the Finals just yet. We need to make sure that these guys can co-exist (they seem unselfish). Make sure they can stay healthy (all are 30+) and we need to figure out who is going to bring the ball up court (is there even a point guard on the roster?). Whether they are a championship caliber team or not, they achieved the main goal they were trying to achieve……create interest among Celtics fans. I am interested.

The Patriots have started training camp and I am excited. I love football; I have even started the process of getting in touch with DirecTV to get the football package. I got to have it, even though I know I will miss a lot of games because of my trips and all the nieces' birthdays in the fall. I have no clue why my sisters in laws love to torment me and have the birthday parties on Sunday. I thought I was in "Packer Country." How can they let this happen? Holly offers to let me stay home, but I feel like a real shit doing that. Maybe I can get DVR when I get cable and record the games. We'll see.
Moss is already hurt for the Patriots. Allegedly it is a hamstring, but it doesn't sound serious, but the Moss haters are finding any excuse to worry about him. I still think he will be fine. He will not be the beast he once was, but he will still put up good numbers. Something 1,000 to 1,100 yards and 8 or 9 TD's. The Patriots are under the microscope this year and there are a lot of people secretly rooting against them. God I would love to see them win the title again with guys like Moss, Stallworth and Merriweather. If they do, I think Belichick is gone the following year. What else is there for him to do? Hopefully fatherhood doesn't hurt Brady.

The Red Sox are currently 8 games up on the Yankees. That is all I can say for fear of jinxing it.

Home Stretch!!!

2007-04-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

5 days left until the scheduled C-section to bring the little guy to this world. I am getting sick with anticipation. We have a new little wrinkle in the delivery. Holly is going to have an amnio done to see if his lungs are developed. This is where they take a giant-ass needle and stick into her belly and try and draw fluid out of the womb. There is a small risk of having this trigger labor, so he could go on Monday.

If his lungs are fine, we stick with Tuesday. If his lungs are not developed, Holly will start taking steroid shots and we will have to wait another couple of days while his lungs develop and Holly's beard grows. Hopefully she doesn't have a roid rage and attack me, but I still think I can take her.

I am a little nervous about this procedure, but I am confident that it will be fine. In our last visit 9 days ago, he was measuring in at 5 lbs. 7 oz., which is pretty sweet. That would mean he would hover around 6.5 pounds when he is taken out of Holly. I have a co-worker who had a full term baby at 6 pounds 4 ounces and he was fine. So I think it will turn out good.

I am taking 2.5 weeks off of work and that will be cool to help Holly recover and become acquainted with this new guy. I have no clue what to expect, but I am painfully excited. My job has been super understanding and everyone is eager to hear the news.

Holly is pretty nervous about the surgery. She is probably more nervous that I will look over the curtain and see her cut open and pass out. My wife and new baby are going through a risky procedure, and she is worried about the idiot standing in the room (Me). She is pretty nervous also about the healing process, because this is not the first time she has gone through with it. But this time, her body will not have shut down on her before the surgery, so hopefully the healing process is a little easier than last time.

This weekend, she plans on cleaning the house with her mother. Her nesting period is in its final stages. Fortunately, I have a test in my Accounting Class on Monday Night and I have to have dinner with a customer Sunday Night, so I get to skip out on the cleaning to study for the exam. I have already warned the professor about the potential Monday delivery and he is completely cool with that (this guy is an excellent and understanding teacher; I wish there were more of him in my undergraduate program). The cleaning should help the house look better, but also allow the time to fly by for Holly which she needs.

The baby room is pretty much all set and we have all that I think we need for now. We have a million sets of clothes for him, we probably have too much. I bought some Patriots and Red Sox outfits on EBay. I probably bought too many and he will wear them once, but that is OK, they will make for great pictures.

My mother is fired up to be a grandmother. I think she will do an outstanding job at it. We will just have to try and stop her from spoiling him (like most grandparents do). It helps that she is close by now. I am sure she will be trying to get us to go out on a date so she can watch the baby.

Well, wish us luck!!!! Hopefully my next post is with pictures of the little guy!!!!