Monday, December 17, 2012

Legislation

Have you ever seen a gun... in real life?

Have you ever seen someone shooting a gun?

Have you ever seen heroin... in real life?

Have you ever seen someone shooting heroin?

That's because outlawing drugs that kill people helps deter their use.  No, it doesn't eliminate heroin from the planet.  However, it's more likely that somebody in the parking lot at Walmart or at a high school has a gun in their glove box than heroin.

Gun legislation is worth talking about, just as much as increased mental health awareness and funding.

~RoB

P.S. When I first wrote this, I spelled heroine incorrectly.

TBOX 2012

Two weekends ago, Annie and I took a trip up to Chicago to visit with one of her close friends from college, as well as participate in the annual Twelve Bars of Xmas (TBoX) bar-crawl throughout Wrigleyville.  (When you click on that link, you can find me in that blurry picture right below the tendons in Heat Miser's right wrist while he pours cereal into the audience.  I'm the dark afro with reindeer antlers on.)  The weather sucked driving up there, but we got there Friday afternoon and decided to pre-party for the bar crawl with red wine and tequila and Jack Daniels.  I've made better decisions...

The crawl started around 8am on Saturday the 8th at The CubbyBear, across from the Chicago Cubs' ballpark.  The line in front of that bar was an absolute zoo; a great foreshadow of the day.

TBOX is effectively a drunken holiday parade on Clark St.
One big thing about TBOX is that you're supposed to look ridiculous.  Straight from their website:  "People need to be STARING at you the minute you leave the house."  I feel like I succeeded in that, since I used blinking LED Xmas lights and red/green pompoms to make a ridiculously ugly sweater.  I also had pink-bunny, footie pajamas on, as well as antlers.  A spectacular moment happened before we even got into the first bar.  An old man pulled up to the stop light, rolled down his window, and shouted "what's going on?", to which someone in the crowd yelled back, "a birthday party!"

The first bar & opening ceremonies were boring.  The guy who created TBOX and organizes it now had a really long, indulgent sing-a-long that he composed and it was super awkward.  It seemed as though he didn't have many friends in real life, so he was going to milk today for all that it was worth.  We left in the middle to get our drink on, but not before getting a green bracelet.  The first bar we went to was Bar Celona.  It was empty, so getting drinks and using the bathroom was easy.  I don't drink beer, so a bar-crawl means that I'll be drinking a bunch of liquor.  There were deals on Jagermeister shots all day, so that was what I was going to choke down so that the day didn't cost $500.

TBOX is all about stickers, as well as their theme, which was TBOXopoly this year.  So, at each bar you got a sticker that said 'you landed on...' and there was a royal court walking around passing out stickers that looked like money with their individual faces on the bills.  Annie and I even had bright pink 'Virgin' stickers that had to be signed by one of the royal court after we kissed/got kissed by them.  (Again, the underlying theme of these folks having poor social lives and needing this bar crawl.)

Thank you, Annie's friend, for hosting us!
I got antsy and progressed by myself to Rockwood Place for a shot and a sticker before meeting my group at the Hofbrauhaus, called Uberstein for some reason.  At this point, Annie was already trying to slow me down by making me drink water in between shots of Jager.  We walked across the street to get into Exedus II Lounge, which I started to freak out about because it wasn't on our TBOXopoly boards.  If I was being challenged to hit at least 12 bars on the board, I had no time to waste at other bars.  Apparently Exedus was one of 3 bars participating in TBOX that weren't on the board, so at least we got stickers.  The back corner of this bar was ridiculously dark, so my Xmas lights were shining bright.

At this point, hunger was affecting my drinking, so Annie and I actually took off to go find pizza at Dimo's.  I ate a ton there, getting a dollar off my second round for being fat.  Annie thoroughly enjoyed the Mac-n-Cheese pizza, and our friends eventually met us there.  We had heard how ridiculous the lines were getting at most of the bars, and we could see that the Blarney Stone didn't look too bad from the windows of the pizzeria, so that is where we headed next.  This ended up being the most-crowded room of the day.  Plus, the single bartender was an old Irish asshole that only served people right in front of him.  (I understand that it was a zoo, and that he could get away with that, but you should really walk along the bar and try to get to everyone.  People were starting to throw shit at him when we decided to just leave.)  At least this pub felt the most authentic.

From there, we decided to head south and find the shortest line, which was to Rookies.  As I look back on the day, Rookies was probably my favorite bar.  This is sad, since it's a Michigan State bar.  They did a fantastic job at controlling numbers that went in so that once you were in you were comfortable.  It was easy to get drinks, the live DJ was playing good music, and there was plenty of room for drinking and dancing.  We stayed there for several drinks, but eventually moved on as our group was getting drunker.  In fact, our group split in half at this point, since Annie and her friend ran off ahead while the rest of us waited for someone to make their way out of Rookies.  I eventually ran off to find the girls, but the rest of the party never came.  Oh well...


I found Annie and her friend at Fiesta Cantina, and we all ran upstairs.  Once we got drinks, we hovered around an empty stripper pole, which was used several times by drunken sorority girls (I wasn't complaining) before we decided to progress to the next bar.  I'll be honest, this is the line in the sand.  This is where things get hazy.  I know most of the events that occurred from here forward, but they may be out of order, or just plain made up.  You can see the number of bars that we had already hit at this point.  I tried to text Annie every time I took a shot, but I lost track by Rookies...  You've been warned!

We found ourselves at Nisei Lounge, where we were lucky enough to meet up with one of my friends from college.  That is, unless Nisei Lounge doesn't have two dartboards in the back.  If it doesn't, I'm not sure what bar we were at.  We left here to return to Clark St. and hit up Deuces, Irish Oak, Mullen's, Vines, and eventually Yak-Zies.  (You're very welcome for combining those into one sentence, since this is already getting too long.)  I really liked Vines, and I would like to visit there once when it wasn't a shit show.  They were even smart enough to have bathroom attendants, so it wasn't absolutely disgusting in there.  At one of these bars, we ran into 4 people dressed as toy soldiers.  After the fact, I was told that they looked like they were from Babes in Toyland, but at the moment, all I could do was sing songs from The Nutcracker loudly at them while making robotic toy soldier motions.  I was not the only one singing in our party, for the record.

Doing shots of cereal is another big thing at TBOX.
At Yak-Zies, my friend from college reunited with his group of bar crawlers.  This bar felt exactly like Elephant & Castle, which was one of my favorite pubs from bar-crawling San Francisco during St. Patty's Day.  It was very comfortable, very spacious, very easy to get drinks, and they had food, which was becoming a necessity again.  At one point, a taco truck pulled up outside, and Annie begged me to bring her food from it, but the nice gentleman at the door said he couldn't allow me to do that since they serve food.

I only needed one more sticker to finish my 12 bars (and Annie only needed 2), so we left our friends at Yak-Zies and ran to Trace.  [If you're doing the math, we had actually already been to 13 bars, but the first bar didn't count and neither did Exedus.]  For our sakes, I don't think we drank at Trace, but we quickly found our way to Raw Bar.  They didn't have any stickers left, but they did have amazing oyster shots with vodka, which we gladly partook in.  This was another bar that I would like to visit while sober.  We finally found ourselves at the northern-most bar of the day, Full Shilling.  This is where shit hit the fan for my female companions.  This is the bar that they remember least, and it's also the bar where they barely took a sip of the beers I bought them.  All they wanted was water.  Lots of water.  I felt like I still had my wits about me, but events that followed might prove otherwise.

We finished, but Annie would not finish those beers!
We were handed red bracelets to match the green bracelets we were handed to at the first bar.  (Remember those bracelets from the first bar?)  These bracelets signified that you had completed a TBOX bar crawl!  Happy with our success, we decided to swing back to Yak-Zies to pick up our fellow partiers.  We only actually got one person to go back out with us, and our first stop was Big G's Pizza.  For some reason, they had stickers, which we gladly accepted, but I was more interested in 3 more slices of pizza.  Also, we ran into the toy soldiers again.  I sang again.  I also finished their half-drank bottle of water after they left.  Could I be more obnoxious?  Annie and our friends decided to sit there for a minute to watch the Heisman ceremony, but I couldn't sit still.  From what I recollect, I stood up and said, "I have to go" and ran off to continue bar crawling on my own.

Annie's completed board, which wouldn't make it home with us
I got to check out Rockit Burger Bar, CubbyBear (again, but this one counted), and Sluggers before meeting them back at Casey Moran's.  I, technically, should have never seen Sluggers, but I walked in the door that they were reserving for the exit.  I had no clue, since nobody stopped me.  It wasn't until I gave up on the crowd and walked back outside that I saw the huge line to get into that bar.  Bernie's had also shut their doors and weren't letting anybody else in.  I remember being very angry at Bernie's.  I also have the slightest memory of reaching into my bunny pocket to find change for a homeless person and pulling out golden, chocolate coins instead of money.  (Most of us found these in our pockets the next morning.  Where the fuck did we get these?  Full Shilling?  Drunker than I thought...)  I gave the chocolate coins to the homeless man anyway.  I pray it was somebody just dressed homeless, since that's a dick move.  Casey Moran's would become home base for the rest of the night, and where we hailed a cab from to take us home, but I wasn't finished.

When I met up with everybody once again at Casey Moran's, I realized that my college friend, who had missed part of the crawl for a birthday party, hadn't finished collecting all the stickers for his TBOXopoly board.  Well, I was a self-proclaimed expert at this point, and I dragged him down the road in the search for stickers.  We went into one really fancy bar that, for the life of me, I cannot figure out which one it was.  We also hit up Dark Horse and Black Sheep, but I was just hunting for stickers.  I think we collected his last sticker at Nisei Lounge (a reappearance for me), and we celebrated with a round.  On the way back to find Annie, I swung in to Merkle's for a round in memory of Granny (who had her funeral at Merkle's Funeral Home in Monroe, MI, in June.)

We time-traveled back to Casey Moran's where I couldn't find Annie.  I remember having an overwhelming fear that Annie and her friend had gone home without me.  I had memorized addresses and cross streets, so I wasn't worried that I'd never see them again, but I do remember being worried.  It turns out they were on the other side of the wall dancing.  I got dragged over to their side of the bar, and I would never see anybody on the other side of the wall again.  I don't remember anybody leaving, but the next thing I knew that side of the bar was closed and they were gone.  Oh well, dancing and water was the name of our game. I also had one other college friend that was headed there at 10pm to meet us.  (What time did we start?)

By the time the new guy joined the party, it was an utter shit show, all parties included.  I ran off to try and collect my first friend who was wandering the streets looking for his lost jacket.  I got to see some spectacular text messages that were passed:  "Abe wow Itzel is: hooatsky earth brute."  Finally, just before 11pm, Annie and I hit a wall.
And it was a big, fast wall that we hit...
We walked outside and hailed a cab back to our friends place, having just left her at the bar.  We managed to get into her apartment.  I had to strip down out of the bunny suit at the door and head straight to the shower, because I was disgusting.  Annie immediately passed out on the airbed.  I, I'm told, came out of the shower screaming at her to drink water, fearing she was dead.  Then I passed out, too.

We woke up at a reasonable hour the next morning, but I think I was still drunk.  Our host had apparently brought someone home with her.  [Awkward palm tree.]  The three of us (sans extra guy) ate at a cool place nearby.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet up with one of my closest friends in Chicago since he and his wife had consumed too much alcohol the night before, also.  Once Annie and I sufficiently had our shit together, we got into our cars and headed back to Kentucky.  The weather driving home sucked.

Your weather sucks, Indiana,
~RoB

P.S. I'm pretty sure that my college friend who got really drunk and lost his jacket had this Red TBOX present on at one time, having found it beside the road, and eventually ditching it since it smelled:

Now it sits in front of Wrigley field.
P.S.S. I'm still unclear how I ended up with a purse strap (no purse) around my right wrist (go back to that last reindeer photo).  It looks like no purse anybody in our party was carrying...

Who Help Themselves...

In the wake of the recent massacre of elementary school students and staff in Connecticut, I find myself frustrated with one message that has gone viral in many forms:



Ummm, usually I can stand on the sideline and let Christians be Christians, but this is where I draw the line.

We need practical solutions to protect kids, as well as general citizens, from maniacs legally obtaining weapons and using them to injure and kill innocent people.  We do NOT need a bunch of people wishing to some magical being for a solution.  If you want God to be in your child's school, then feel free to enter your children into a private, Christian institution.  There they can spend more time on God and less time on Math.

I don't want gun legislation to be a knee-jerk reaction to what has happened in the past week.  I want gun legislation to be a logical step regarding years worth of data determining that our policies on guns are killing us.

The over-used 'Right to Bear Arms' argument is old.  The Constitution had slavery written into it.  Most states' voting laws only allowed for white men who owned significant property to vote (the Constitution left voting rights up to states originally).  We've Amended (and sometimes un-amended) the Constitution several times since it was written, including Amendment #2.  It's a living document, and most of it is out-dated.

You should only have the right to protect yourself if you are going to do so with a weapon that is not automatic or semi-automatic and if you are mentally stable.  There is no need for concealed weapons; if you are just protecting yourself, then there's no harm in visually notifying everyone in your surroundings that you're prepared to.  You only need single- and double-shot weapons for hunting.  Automatic weapons should be reserved for military.  If the military were to ever turn on its citizens, which Amendment #2 was protecting us from, we would have bigger issues to deal with than people running down our streets firing guns at us.  Much bigger issues...

All I'm trying to say is that religion shouldn't be part of the current discussion.  You know my feelings on religion, and I think they're reasonably fair.  However, this should be a time to debate gun control and mental health funding.  It should absolutely not be a time for wasting time on religion in schools.

Pray in one hand, shit in the other, and tell me which one fills first,
~RoB

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Chick-fil-A-ters...

"... is the 't' silent?" ~ Jon Stewart

I'm not positive, but I'm quite sure that I've never eaten anything from Chick-fil-A.  Annie thinks that we might have been fed some at a Rose Bowl, so I can't swear that I've avoided the company completely.  They have funny commercials.  They host a college football bowl game.  I certainly don't hate the company.

I just don't support the company.  When given full choice of food options, I've avoided Chick-fil-A for years.  It's been long known (not just these past couple months) that it's leadership has a very pro-Christian mindset.  I don't really have a big deal with that, as long as their business is an Equal Opportunity Employer and respects all of its customers, even if they're closed on Sundays.  If they were rude to Jewish or homosexual customers, I'd have a much bigger deal with them.

However, I can't, in good conscious, have the smallest fraction of the money that I've paid for an over-priced chicken and bacon sandwich go to some executive who is going to use those pennies to support policies that I strongly oppose.

Now there's this whole blown-out-of-proportion anti-gay-marriage chicken-eating protest.  Fat America's favorite protest ever.  And there's only one group of people losing:  fat people.


Get over yourself, homos.  We all know that you'll have all of your marriages soon.  I can't believe it's even still a debate.  Though it certainly sucks for you now, it does give my generation the perspective of how ludicrous it must have been growing up during the segregation or suffrage movements and looking around at those opposing equal human rights and thinking, 'wtf?'

Fat people.  That's who's getting fucked right now.

You know what I'm talking about.  The smell of White Castle.  The sight of a perfect curl on the top of a freshly poured Wendy's Frosty.  The sound of Coke fizzing as it's poured into a frosty mug.  That first bite of an Oreo that's just been pulled out of milk.  Crack to fat people.

I've been perfectly fine in my personal quest to avoid Chick-fil-A.  I just don't think about it.  If I pass one one the road, I remind myself that I'm busy and how unhealthy fast food is, and I'm able to move on with my day.  For the past week, Chick-fil-A has been in every conversation, every news article, every talk show.  Pictures of delicious-looking, perfectly golden, deep-fried chicken sandwiches taunting me everywhere I look.  And let's be honest, I have zero self-control.


Now, all I want is a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich.  I'm no Judas.  I'm just hungry.  And that's how the anti-gays are winning.  Fast food wins.  It's unfair.  I'd love for Michelle Obama to save us with her healthy food, but she's bringing cauliflower to a gun fight.

So, if I stagger helplessly into a Chick-fil-A this week, it's not because I hate the gays.  I have to be at least a quarter gay (DNA test?).  I'm there cuz I've snapped, and I want a politics-be-damned chicken sandwich.
Judge not lest ye be judged, or whatever...
It better be delicious,
~RoB

Friday, July 27, 2012

To Jail or the Hospital?

I've made a friend in Lexington that I have a strange connection with.  I wouldn't consider us very close, and we haven't really spent that much time together, but we have similar personalities.  He's an asshole in the same way that I am.  We're both smart, dirty-minded, and quick to add our opinions about things.  Usually in the form of a pun or sarcasm.  The biggest difference is that he's cheap.  I don't really have any money, but I'm still not cheap.  Well, he's moving to California this week.  So, we wanted to give him a night out on the town before he left us.

I've actually been having stomach issues over the past couple of weeks, which actually forced me to go to a clinic at one point.  Because of this, I haven't been drinking lately.  Thankfully.

This was roughly the same group of people that drank heavily for St. Patrick's Day, and we all know how that turned out.  The cheap friend who got everyone kicked out of my favorite bar in Lexington, The Penguin, is the same guy that I described at the beginning having the same personality as myself.  I don't know if he felt he had to live up to his last performance, or if he just doesn't have a limit switch.  The mantra we decided on before going out was: "nobody goes to jail, nobody shows their tits".


Shots were had at the first bar.  Shots were had at the second bar, a tequila bar.  Drinks were flowing as soon as it hit midnight, since their house margaritas got quite cheap.  At one point, sparkly eye shadow was brought out and applied to my eyelids, with the ring finger of the girl who owned the makeup, since that's, apparently, the appropriate way to apply eye shadow with your fingers.  I was notified by this same girl that the superpower that matches my personality would be invisibility, since I wouldn't have to wear pants.  So true.


We progressed onto The Penguin, which was tempting fate in the first place.  The first thing that was ordered was another shot.  This time, it was a shot called The Cody.  It's whatever the bartender feels like pouring into the glass.  Apparently, our bartender just got divorced, 'cuz he was on a mission to fuck somebody's life up.  From what the largest person in our group could see, the bartender poured in Jagermeister, Bicardi 151, Gin, Everclear, and a few other un-identified liquids, a recipe that bear-man drunkenly repeated for the rest of the night.


Like I said, I haven't been drinking lately, and I wasn't really keeping up with the crowd tonight, but I decided to suck it up and try this concoction.  As I was shooting it, my body stopped me about 1/3 of the way.  I couldn't finish it.  It was the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth.  I've never bitched out on a shot.  I assure you, you would have also.  Within minutes, the 3 people that were able to put their shots down were nice and drunk.  Then the night got interesting.

Drinks were still flowing.  Dueling pianos were... dueling.  The bar is great fun, which is why I like it so much.  It was great to enjoy it as a fairly sober customer, this time.  Fishbowls were purchased, over-enthusiastically.  Dancing was had.  Cider was flowing.  Before long, everybody in my party was just about blackout drunk, aside from one other girl, who lost her house keys at the tequila bar and got at least one drink/shot behind in trying to find them.  So, I just got to enjoy the cheap guy getting handsy with another girl in our party.  Drunken ramblings.  Big smiles.

We've all been there.  We know things can't go this hard for this long and not start to make a turn for the worst.  The cheap guy started getting a little too handsy.  Although the girl that was dancing with him didn't mind, she wasn't really coherent enough to really make that call herself, so we started playing all kinds of games to calm down that situation.  The lights came on.  It was roughly 2:30am.  The bar had emptied out at some point, and we were going through the motions of collecting our party and our possessions and heading to the door.

The cheap guy, at this point the drunkest person in our party, was starting to get obnoxious.  He was calling everybody in the party the same name.  He made a turn for the bar, which we all started to be wary of, since we figured he would mouth off to the bartender and get booted out of here.  Instead, he got served.  I'm told that he actually told the bartender that he was Bruce Wayne, asked one of our friends to confirm that, and still got served.  Love this bar.


I was on my way out as he started yelling at the bartender and at our group of friends.  Something about getting laid tonight, just with less class.  I just peaced out, and left other people to deal with him.  At dinner, I notified everyone that I held no responsibility to anybody except Annie, even though I was going to be mostly sober for the night.  I look through the window, and I see the majority of my group dragging the drunk cheap guy out, slightly against his will.  They got him outside, he's still running his mouth, albeit mostly incoherently, and he's making it more and more difficult to keep him moving out of the range of the bouncers.  One friend managed to get a trash bag form The Penguin staff before departing.  We managed to drag him down the block a few store-fronts before things really got interesting.

He managed to get a hold of a parking meter and start hanging on for dear life.  He wouldn't budge, regardless how much he was begged or physically nudged.  Then it became apparent that he was having trouble with motor skills, and the shortest girl in our party, who was primarily holding him up, started asking for help.  The whole party got together and convinced him to sit down on some steps.  Our largest friend, bear-man, a 6-foot-something bear of a man, was sitting next to him.  We all huddled up and set plans for cabs and money and getting everyone home safely.  We turn around, and scrawny, drunk, cheap guy is strangling the also-drunken Crossfit monster.

I managed to drag drunk cheap guy off and rest him up against another parking meter.  The party split at this point, since bear-man decided that if he hung around any longer he was going to have to show the skinny drunk guy how bad the decision to try and choke him was.  Short girl begged me not to leave her holding up drunk guy by herself, but the rest of the party went to make sure bear was ok and going to get home ok.  Drunk guy started losing his grip on the parking meter, and short girl couldn't take any more weight, so I told her to drop him.  Maybe busting his knees or his head would wake him up a little.  She didn't like the idea, but since I wasn't going to help, she didn't really have a choice.  Down he went, face down, sprawled out on the sidewalk.  And that's where he laid, un-phased and still mumbling.

That's when the cops pulled up to The Penguin.  They talked to the bouncer, and one cop turns toward us.  We have no time.  Drunk guy is going to jail, and he will not cooperate with us.  So, I screamed at him to stop running his mouth.  I dragged him into a little, dark doorway leading into a closed store.  I roughly flipped him over, picked him up, threw an arm over my shoulder, got the short girl under the other one, and we started scurrying away.  As soon as we stepped out from the doorway, the cop was about 3 feet to our right.  We just started walking away from him.  Granted, it looked more like 2 people holding up a stiff in the style of Weekend at Bernie's.


"You guys going far?" said the cop, now right behind us.  "Nope, just around the corner," the short girl quickly replies.  On cue, and almost over-top of the correct response, drunk guy turns his head to clearly pronounce, "To Jail!"  I almost punched him out.  I sure as hell wasn't going to jail.  Our Weekend at Bernie's charade continued up another block, around the corner, up another block, and off of Main St.  The cop was apparently satisfied enough with our handling of the situation.

At some point, short girl's husband, over-excited drunk, came back and tried to hail us a cab.  It stopped, looked back at drunken, half-dead Bernie between us, and sped off.  We got skinny, drunk guy about one more block before he started actin' a fool.  He decided that he needed to fight me this time.  It was almost comical.  I just held onto him tight until his fit ended.  At one point he whined, "Why am I so weak right now?"  I'm not sure sober he would have had much more leverage.  I should probably continue on calling him scrawny, drunk guy.  He finally gave up, and we realized that we had only made it about 3 blocks in roughly an hour.  No cabs were going to take us home, so the only option was for me to get my car and drive us home.  My car was probably 6 blocks away.  Maybe more.  Dragging him there would probably take us all night, since he continued to get worse.

The last crosswalk we were in, he gave up and we just dragged him to the next parking garage.  I made sure everyone was ok with the idea, and ready to handle him, then I took off sprinting toward my car, by myself.  I was parked just past the courthouse, with the large fountain and bright lights illuminating its steps.  I ran to my car, pulled out of the garage, followed the labyrinth of one-way streets, and finally pulled up in front of the parking garage I left them.  I got out of my car and stepped into pure pandemonium.


I saw over-excited drunk running around in the parking garage waving one hand over his head clutching the large garbage bag and holding the other hand over his crotch.  "I'm gonna piss myself."  So I left him to find short girl, holding Humpty Dumpty on the ledge as he's vomiting up shredded chicken and alcohol.  Her mascara was tear-streaked and smeared to the sides of her face as if she were wearing a Bat Girl mask.  (Later, she admitted to getting overwhelmed when she realized that if he tried to attack her, she had no choice but to hurt him severely, since she wasn't capable of holding him off like the last two guys did.)  She notified me that a few cops have passed by, and each time they just held his head up and pretended like he was fine.  We let him puke and drool and slip in and out of consciousness until he seemed to have the bulk of what was coming out of his system.  We were at the base of the stairs to this parking garage.  Randomly, other drunken people would come by and either ask us if we were ok or make some comment about how they've been there.


Over-excited drunk shows back up with a bag of pee, only to comment on how he should have saved the bag for pukey-face.  A few times, drunk guy would yell "RUN!!" to a passerby.  One tough guy decided to turn around and get all, "from what? You?"  We had to politely ask him to please forgive him and give us a break.  I can't remember quite what happened, but I do remember the drunk guy exclaiming, "I can't control gravity" as he tipped forward off of his wall and landed in his pile of puke.

We decided this was the best chance to drag him to my car.  We did, getting puke all over each other, and we threw him in sideways.  He refused to pick up his legs, and told us just to break them.  I was happy to, since I was fed up, and I started shoving and maybe even kicking.  Drunk guy yells, "I don't trust him, he's going to kill me!"  Wife climbs in on the other side and asks drunk guy if he trusts her.  He did, so she yelled, "Get in the Fucking car!!"  It felt like 8 hours, but we were finally in the car, and we were heading home.  Over-excited drunk was nervous that he had never seen someone this drunk before, but I told them I would tell them what to watch out for since he was crashing at their house.  (At Michigan, the rule-of-thumb is that you don't take someone to the hospital until they shit themselves.  Probably not the best metric, but it hasn't backfired on us yet.)

I pull up to their apartment, get out of the car, walk toward his door, and the wife starts screaming, "he's not breathing."  At that point, Annie calls my cell phone.  She's made it home with drunk girl that got felt up, via a taxi that was taking drunken bear home, but realized that I have the only house key, since I have the car.  As this conversation is happening, I have pulled open unconscious drunk guy's mouth, pulled his tongue forward from blocking his breathing, stuck my finger into his throat to do a throat sweep (darn right I'm American Red Cross First Aid / CPR / AED certified!).  I punched him in the chest a few times, it's hard to do chest compressions when I'm on the phone.  "Get back in the car, we're going to the hospital.  Annie, we have to go to the hospital, I think drunk guy stopped breathing."  "Well, can you swing by and give me a key, Angel is going crazy?"  (Really, Annie?  I'm about to drive someone to the emergency room, and your drunk ass wants me to swing by with a key so you can take a nap?)


So we're heading to the hospital.  Over-excited guy is drilling me on what's going to happen to him, and if he will get in trouble.  I explained that they could charge him with public intoxication, but that it rarely happens.  However, if he decided to start swinging at a doctor, or if his flailing injured a nurse, then his ass was grass.  Somehow, drunky heard us and started begging for this not to go on his record.  Wife, who was slapping him in between frantically yelling his name and checking for breathing, mentioned that he actually looked like he was coming to.  In order to avoid incidents and potential criminal charges, the husband and wife team vowed to stay up with him all night and make sure he was ok.  Drunk guy was calling us all by the same name still, but he changed it to the name of over-excited guy, so maybe he was coming around.  I busted a U-turn.  They decided they could call the ambulance if necessary.  Phone call, "...bring me keys..."

We pulled back up to their house, we carried him inside the house, and he even asked us to let him go up the first flight of stairs himself.  He managed, but only because the couch is right in front of the steps at the top.  Straight forward, down on the couch.  Phone call, "... bring me keys..."

Drunk guy decides he needs the bathroom and gets up himself.  I explain to the couple about what positions to keep him in, most importantly not to let him pass out on his back.  How to check for breathing, etc.  Phone call, "...bring us keys..."  I'm on the stairs, about to leave, wishing them luck when Boom! the drunk guy falls in the kitchen, straight onto his head, no hands out to break his fall.  Fuck him, I did my part, so I left.

I drove home.  Not a single phone call.  I figured they gave up and broke a window.  I pulled into my dark driveway, and they weren't sitting at the front or back porch.  I walked up to the back porch, opened the screen door, and started to unlock the dead bolt.  From behind me, I hear moaning, see beings start to lift themselves up from the ground, and zombie toward me, arms outstretched.  Turns out it was Annie and the girl that got felt up, who had passed out in our back yard.  Felt-up girl passed out on top of the picnic table.  Annie on the ground.  (She later found a bunch of bug bites on her legs.)


I was still revved, so I offered to drive felt-up girl home, who was starting to look on the sober side herself.  It had, at this point, been about 3 hours since I had last seen her.  Annie stumbled inside, set down her bottle of water, and stumbled off toward the bedroom.  I drove felt-up girl home, windows rolled down to suppress the puke smell permeating the car, and I returned home.  I grabbed the pet stain and odor remover from under the stink, and I cleaned the interior of the car.  I went back inside and stripped down my absolutely disgusting clothes, dropped a line on Facebook, and jumped in the shower to get all of the puke out of my hair, off my skin, and out of my sense of smell.  Finally, at roughly 5:30am, I fed my dog breakfast, and I passed out beside a deep-sleeping Annie.

The next day, between hashing things out with Annie and meeting everybody except scrawny, drunk guy and felt-up girl for Sunday dinner, a full picture of the night developed.  The group not stuck with scrawny, drunk guy ended up at a pizza parlor.  It's likely they were actually eating a pizza on the steps of the courthouse as I went sprinting by to pick up my car from the garage I had parked in at the beginning of the night.  (There have been many jokes about me pulling a scene from Scrubs and stopping to enjoy pizza with them while leaving the married couple to deal with drunk guy themselves.)  The water bottle Annie had at the end of the night was from the pizza place.  That group got to see two guys get into it at the pizza place after one accused the other of cutting.  They also had a random incident with a lost, drunken person, but without a doubt, had a calm, pleasant night compared to us.


The couple that had to stay up all night with drunky didn't appear to have any more major incidents.  We had apparently gone through the worst of it together.  There was one moment where his face got stuck to the inside of the trash bag that he was drooling into, and they had to help him not smother himself.  There was also a pretty spectacular moment where he had his pants around his ankles and his head buried in the toilet when he exclaimed that he was going to get laid tonight.  His odds weren't really in his favor.

One person said something that really nailed the whole night down for me.  We were inches away from losing drunk guy to the police.  Hell, if things got really crazy and I ended up going to jail, I would have had sparkly eye shadow on for my mug shots.  Plus, Annie made it clear that, though I said I only claimed responsibility to her, she was the person that I took the least care of.

What age does your group of friends have to be before nights out on the town don't create blog posts this long?
~RoB

P.S. Nobody went to jail, nobody showed their tits.  Not for lack of trying.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Mormons, Finally

Some of the closest friends I've made throughout my travels in the past 8 years have actually been Mormon.  Whatever they believe, they're good people, with, generally, strong Cleaver-esque families.  As someone with a family with more skeletons in the closet than people in the tree, I'm always fascinated with families that aren't nearly as screwed up as my own.

So, when I made new Mormon friends, I let them educate me on their religion.  I actually found it fascinating.  None of my friends gave me any sort of pressure, they just answered my questions the best that they could, and every once in a while, they blew my mind.  Either with a fascinating comeback to what I usually consider strong personal logic, or by having full faith in something that I found absolutely ridiculous.  Most of them were some of the smartest people I've met in their respective fields, yet it was like sometimes they spewed things and believed things that just didn't seem to match the strong intellect that I associated with them.

I've read interesting books regarding the religion, my favorite being Under the Banner of Heaven.  I get excited when I meet a Mormon.  I always point them out when they're biking in pairs.  I'm always a little bit jealous that they're not swinging by my front door.

Until now.

The doorbell rang as I was watching the first USA Olympics Women's Soccer match.  I was butt-ass naked.  The dog started going crazy.  I ran around the house looking for my robe.  It's been a while since I've worn my robe, since it's sweaty as balls in Lexington right now.  I was actually scared that it was my landlord or something.  I wish I peeked out the window, cuz I may have just answered the door in my birthday suit.  That may have made things more interesting.

They introduced themselves as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder-Day Saints.  As if it wasn't obvious, but I expect that some of the peeps in my neighborhood might not have any clue who they are.  I wish I would have recorded the whole interaction, because I have no clue how they transition from one topic to another.  I don't know if they are taught to try and use my vocabulary in their sales pitch, or make it relatable (I told them I was a nuclear physicist), but they were failing miserably.

So, if you thought you could prove or disprove the existence of God, would you do that experiment?
Isn't that what the Book of Job teaches us?  That it's not possible to disprove God.  That devoting your life to disproving Christianity will only make more firm your belief in it.

You know that God made the earth in 6 days, and then rested on the 7th.
Okay, so do you believe that he actually did it in the span of six 24-hour days?
Well, actually, I expect that the time period could be almost anything. Since God is infinite.
If he's perfect, why wouldn't he tell us the actual amount of time in our vernacular instead of confusing us in the interpretation of what he, at the time, considered to be 'one day'.

What do you think will happen to you when you die.
I just die.  It's depressing, yes, but it's logical.  I'm not anti-religion; I think it's good for the masses.  I just tend to devote most of my beliefs to science.

So, you think that the perfect balance of oxygen and trees and people could happen without divine intervention?
Not in a short time period.  But considering the large span of time since we currently estimate the Big Bang or the formation of Earth, I think it starts to become more reasonable.  An infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters should be able to crank out Shakespeare.  A strange set of circumstances and evolution could bring us here just as logically as some sort of divine intervention.

If a printing press exploded, it's hard to believe that what's left over would come together to form a book.
If it was disintegrated into its purely elemental components and left in temperature gradients for a geological time scale in a very reactive environment, then it's more reasonable to believe that it has every possibility of at least turning into a tree, the primary component of a book.  Nobody claimed that the Big Bang made skyscrapers.  Evolved humans made those.

I've never seen a monkey turn into a human.
You also don't appear to understand the Theory of Evolution.  It's not 'monkey today, human tomorrow'.  It claims we have a common ancestor.  With the progression of fossils we have spanning a great deal of time, and the changes that occur, again, evolution seems more and more reasonable.

You know, they teach evolution at BYU-Idaho.
I guess you have to understand what you're going up against.

There are smart people that believe that religion and science can work side-by-side.
Yes, I've actually watched one of those panels.  Too much quoting of the Bible, which I have a hard time defending as a scientific source.


They went on to tell me that they can invite me to church with them, so that I can pray to God and make sure that my decisions are the correct ones.  They notified me that we were once with God and that our progression in life is to return to him.  They asked me if they could do anything for me, and I just told them to be safe and stay hydrated.  I also asked a little about them.  One was from Idaho.  One from Utah.  One was about to hit his 1-year anniversary of being a missionary.  His friend was about to reach 2 months.  All in all, I wish they were a tad-bit older (since I could almost talk to them like teenagers) and just a bit more prepared to battle wits without using scripture.  Hell, I have a Book of Mormon.  I have the New Testament.  My only stance while we were talking was that they couldn't use scripture to defend their points.  Otherwise, we'd just be arguing faith in a small collection of texts, some of which are actually newer than the Declaration of Independence.

It was pleasant, and even a little fun.

Thanks for stopping by, my new Mormon friends,
~RoB

Friday, July 13, 2012

WDW Day 2: Drinking Epcot

Though we finally got to sleep at 2am after our first day at Disney World, Annie sprung out of bed ready to get to Epcot as soon as it opened.  I wasn't having it.  Though she wasn't totally thrilled at the idea, we agreed to meet at Epcot at 10:30am, just before the World Exhibit opened.  This gave her the chance to run back to Animal Kingdom, buy a shirt she was considering, and ride Expedition Everest a couple more times.

This was my first encounter with what would become the Achilles' heel of Disney World:  the bus system.  Though I was out waiting for the bus by 10am, which seemed reasonable since Epcot was across the street, I don't think I actually got to Epcot for over an hour.  (Oh, and though Epcot was literally across the street, it was the World Exhibit part of Epcot, which means the entrance was on the other side, and it took forever to get to.)

Epcot is the only thing that I remember about Disney World when I went there in high school.  There are a bunch of different countries represented by a little neighborhood of shops and eats that are supposed to feel like you're in that country.  They were even worked by people who were brought over from that country.  It was mind-blowing for sheltered, white trash, young ~RoB, who was much less educated about the rest of the world when he was 16.

We started in Canada & the UK.  It was too early to drink, and I don't drink beer, so it was primarily looking at things to buy.  Annie wanted a London Olympics shirt, but we didn't buy it until we came back at the end of the night.  There were Highland games for the release of Brave, but it was swarming with little kids, so we skipped it.  Somehow, cornhole was considered a Highland game.

We were walking through a shop in France when I noticed a bunch of wine bottles lining a counter.  Granted, it was maybe 11:30am at the latest, but who doesn't want a little French wine to get through their day at Disney?!  The man behind the counter was asking the man in front of us in line how he planned to spend the day.  The guy responded, "I have 4 kids dragging me around."  Then he walked out with his full glass of Champagne to find those 4 kids.  They sounded wonderful.  Upon looking into it, we realized that there was a World Wine Walk where you could drink wine from the different countries as you travel through.  We signed up, and we drank the French wine.  I convinced Annie to get some French pastries from the bakery, but they sucked. Don't get 'em.

It was hot, so we liked to stop in all of the museum-things to see art and the like, since they were extremely air conditioned.  Morocco was just, eh.  Japan was better. They had this whole exhibit about how Japanese legends and ancient gods have influenced video games and cartoons.  Taiko drumming rings throughout the pavilion.  Annie did a Sake tasting and also got some sushi.  We skipped 'merica, cuz we're pretty well-traveled there.  Italy was the next stop on our wine trail.  It was also when shit started to hit the fan.
We drank the Italian wine.  This was probably the most disappointing of the countries, because the old lady behind the counter was bitchy.  However, we realized we needed some food asap, cuz things were slowly getting drunk, between the heat and the alcohol.  We found the Tutto Gusto Wine Cellar, sat down and drank wine and munched on some light food.  It was all really amazing.  One of the highlight meals of the trip.  Stumbling back from the bathroom, I realized that everyone around me was pretty red-faced.  Apparently, the only way to experience Epcot is to drink it. And to start early.

On to Germany. We actually enjoyed the German wine, and now we have our eyes open for Spatlese. I also got a lesson on the German wine-making region from the lady behind the counter.  Annie got beer, too.  China didn't have alcohol, but it did have a shitty, frozen-food version of a steamed pork bun.  We really miss living beside Oakland's Chinatown, because we got addicted to those damn little buns.  Who knows how much MSG we consumed in our last year there.  Anyway, China did have another cool exhibit about the life-size army of statues that one of their emperors was buried with.

Finally, Norway for the viking boat ride, and Mexico to drink in their new Tequila bar. At some point, it started to rain.  So, being sturdy, outdoors-y people, we took the opportunity to walk to the other side of the park, Future World, and ride some of the rides while people were evacuating or hiding.  Only a few things stick out.

Mission: SPACE was probably the most fun. More because they ask you to leave at least a dozen times if you have motion sickness issues.  It ended up being the best simulator I've been in.  The Seas with Nemo was uber disappointing.  Living with the Land was an interesting look at sustainable farming and research performed there.  And, of course, we had to do Soarin', since Annie loves it.  It's the exact same as the one in California.  I think we finished with Spaceship Earth.  I remember really disliking that ride the last time I was there.  However, the new interactive movie they create for you at the end made the ride totally worth it this time.  Annie tried to upload it onto her blog, but the link is broken, so here it is:

Annie apparently broke the camera on her side, but my face is classic.

Now you see why it took so long to publish this post, it's damn long,
~RoB

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Car Commercials

Never watched it...
Seriously, am I the only person who doesn't want a car that fishtails anytime shit gets serious?  It seems like that's every car commercial these days:  a car Tokyo Drifting (or power sliding, whatever the hell that means) through random-ass scenes.  Give me a stable car that's not going to slide or flip, and we've got a deal.



Why can't car ads be geared more toward the ones that convinced me to get my car:  the 2007 Dodge Caliber.  Go America!


Just like my car, I'm anything but cute,
~RoB

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Trivia Team Names

Since moving to Lexington, Annie and I have joined our new friends in playing trivia on Monday nights at a nearby bar. Actually, we just switched bars because the manager at The Pub on Monday nights is a total cunt. Anyway, we kept the same name every week at the Pub as part of a year-long competition. That doesn't exist at the new bar we go to, but instead has a prize every week for the best team name.

I feel like that puts a lot of pressure on my shoulders, since I have the dirtiest mind, the most time on my hands, tend to keep up with current news, and I'm witty. By the way, this place is 'anything goes' as far as how bad your name can be. Also, 'names' more commonly refers to 'long-ass punchlines'.

We haven't won best name yet, even though I've come up with 3 solid names thus far:
  • Rodney King's Swim Coach
  • Menage a Trois w/ Tatum & McConaughey
  • Life is like a box of chocolates, it doesn't last long if you're FAT!
We've been beaten by team names like:
  • Anderson 'takes it in the pooper' Cooper
  • I may have lost my virginity, but I still have the box it came in
  • Rodney King beats Sheriff Taylor to death, who saw that coming!
Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time trying to be punny or funny about current events:
  • I finish faster than the San Diego fireworks
  • Harry Potter tricked Cruise into handing Holmes a sock
  • Mike McQueary is a cock blocker

I also spent way too much time yesterday trying to figure out something for "Higgs boson".  When I ran them all by Annie, I realized that you needed the mental image in my head for them to work, and you still might not realize it's a Higgs boson reference.  So, here are the Higgs boson puns I came up with, which are now the newest Higgs boson memes on the market.


I'm not sure why the Muppets were primary characters in the puns I thought of.  Also, it was difficult to come up with something that matched the spoonerism of Higgs boson -> Biggs hose on.  I think it works, though.

Aside from that, it's been a good deal of internet research to find what great team names other people have come up with.  There's a good deal of them in reference to Gary Coleman:
  • Gary Coleman had a short life
  • Death: the closest Gary Coleman got to 6 feet
  • Gary Coleman had a different stroke
Now, on my phone, I am collecting a growing list of my favorite team names from the interwebz.  Here are a few:
  • The Jackson 4
  • Betty White can't wrestle, but you should see her Box
  • Beer Makes Smart
  • Cake Farts
  • Who's Your Daddy, and what does he do?
  • 2 Guys, 1 Cup
  • Wilford Brimley's Diabetus
  • Diarrhea of Anne Frank
  • Cupid Stunts
  • Truffle Shufflers
  • Dysenteryaki
  • Don't cum on my Snuggie
  • This microphone smells like my dad's dick
  • Silence is Golden, Duct Tape is Sticky
  • Cocaine Smells Good
  • It burns when I Quiz

If you hear some, especially regarding current news, I'd love to see/steal them!
~RoB

Friday, July 6, 2012

Redneck Tennis

After almost 2 full weeks of Wimbledon, shortly after 2 full weeks of the French Open, I'm itching to play tennis.  However, it's hot as balls here.  There was a brief break in the 90-degree heatwave last night, since it tried to storm all day yesterday, without success.  (Just fucking rain already!)  I waited for Annie to get home from her kickball league, and I dragged her and Angel out to the nearby courts.

I've yet to see anybody else out there playing tennis since we moved here.  However, as we turned the corner and started down the parking lot, there was a doubles match and a woman with a ball machine taking up 2 of the 4 courts.  There was a dog tied inside the court by the doubles match, similar to what we were about to do.

So, we set up shop next to the doubles players.  The first thing I heard them say was some drawl-y reference to Wimbledon.  The only thing going for them that looked remotely Wimbledon, was the white wife-beater that one was wearing.  One was shirtless.  One had steel-toe work boots on.


As Annie and I hit around, I couldn't help but be entertained at their version of tennis.

Their score worked like this:  get a point, add a point.  So instead of 15-30, it'd be 1-2.  If you got to 4-4, it'd go back to 3-3, "because that's how them French do it.  They call it deuces."

Anytime a ball would end up next to their tied up dog, there'd be some comment like, "you're gettin' greedy, Blue. You got your ball."

"Hey, before we leave, can we play one at a time.  I want to see what it's like to have to run this whole court."  "You don't have to run the whole court, you gotta run from that line-y thing to that one."  "This white line-y thing?"  "To the other one."

I'm not great at tennis, but their skills made their game look more like pickleball.  All I could think of was, how in the hell did these guys decide to come out and attempt to play, and who the hell had all of the racquets and balls?  And, why the hell are they watching Wimbledon?

If I'm lyin', I'm dyin',
~RoB

P.S. Throughout this blog, I've Google Image searched some of the strangest phrases, with even stranger results.  Like these for "redneck tennis":

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Walt Disney World Day 1: Animal Kingdom

Annie and I just took a week-long trip to Florida.  In general, we don't support the state of Tim Tebow & Urban Meyer, but Annie had never been to Disney World.  She's been to Disneyland about as many times as you've ever gone to the grocery store.  So, she wanted to compare the two.

Anyway, the trip consisted of 4 days at a Disney World Resort, the Caribbean Beach Resort, and a park hopper for all four days, then 2.5 days with my aunt & uncle, who just retired to Ft. Myers.

When I hear the words "Animal Kingdom" in reference to Disney World, I honestly only have one ride in mind:  everyone piled into a jeep driving through the back lot of a zoo.  Apparently, the park was built around this concept.  The ride I'm describing, Kilimanjaro Safaris, is hands-down the coolest ride there.  Annie really liked the roller coaster, Expedition Everest, but I wanted the encounter with the Yeti to be way scarier.  We both enjoyed the Lion King show, too.

At Animal Kingdom, we also rode the shittiest ride of the four days.

Annie was excited that her Home was the top destination.

I was getting hot & thirsty, and I knew alcohol was going to be the only thing to help me survive the trip, so I was dragging Annie to the bar inside the park.  On the way there, we stumbled upon a South African wine tasting.  Nothing says ~RoB like wine tasting.  So we both did it, and it was really fun, and it was pretty good wine.  I'm changing my mind.  Wine tasting was the best ride in Animal Kingdom.  They only do it in Animal Kingdom for the month of June, and it's only 4pm to close.  The coolest thing we found was Jam Jar, a sweet Shiraz.  Highly recommended, check it out.

We ended the day with a ride on Kali River Rapids, which is a shittier version of Thunder Canyon, for all you Cedar Point buffs out there.  I got more wet than I wanted to.  Especially since we were heading to Cat Cora's new restaurant at the Boardwalk*, Kouzzina.  The food was great, the atmosphere is always fun when there's an open kitchen, and the amount of food we got was more than we could handle.

We rode a ferry from there to Hollywood Studios, where we showed up 5 minutes late to Fantasmic.  This was one of my surprisingly favorite things about Disneyland, and it held up at Disney World.  We were going to take advantage of a bunch of rides since it stayed open later for Resort dwellers, but the lines were still ass-long.  We snagged the Little Mermaid show, which sucked almost as much as Primeval Whirl.  That's sad, cuz Ariel is smokin' hot.  We got to ride the Star Wars simulator, then we went home to pass out, which finally happened at 2am or so.

Fuck is it hot & humid right now in Florida,
~RoB

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Granny's Eulogy

If you haven't heard, Granny passed away this past week.  I can't say I was surprised, after seeing her about 3 weeks ago (for her 70th birthday) and understanding the frequency of hospital visits over the past 3 years.  Everyone said she was in such a great mood when she went to bed.  She didn't make it to morning.

I was asked to give the eulogy.  Y'all should know that I'm very un-emotional, or at least, I hide them.  This was the big chance to see what I was made of.  Could I keep myself together and deliver a good speech?  Apparently not.  This is what I wrote.  What actually came out was a shaky, emotional mess.

Granny is the short one in the middle.
"I’m pretty sure that I’ve yet to spend more time with any other person on this Earth compared to the amount of time that I spent with my Grandmother, or as everyone knows her, “Granny”. She certainly had her faults and her addictions, but she almost single-handedly molded me into the person I am today.

She washed every dish I ate off until I was 18. No automatic dishwasher, just her hands.

She washed every piece of clothing I wore. That made my first week of college awkward, when a girl from down the hall found me searching for the lint trap on the washing machine. For those who are currently spoiled like I was, the lint trap is actually on the dryer.

She picked out this very jacket, which is so comically over-sized and out of style that I had to wear it one last time for her.
She was the lady that sliced every single grape in half when I complained about there being seeds in them. She cooked me a grilled cheese for almost every meal I can remember growing up, regardless of what she actually made for dinner.

She left seeds of herself in every aspect of my life. I ended up choosing to play the trumpet after her stories of playing one in the Salvation Army Band with her siblings.

She couldn’t help with my homework, but she made me sit down and finish every homework assignment before I could go outside. She forced me to do as well as I could in school, knowing how bright a future I had in front of me.

She taught me how to read people. She could look out her window and tell you exactly what everyone in town was doing.

She taught me not to count anybody out, regardless of their size or how smart I think they are or how much money they have. One scratch-off could change everything.

Granny,
You always talked about how you wanted to see and know everything that I was doing, from the slopes at Lake Tahoe to the lights of Times Square. Well, now you’ll have the best seat in the house, for you will be with me everywhere I go, for the rest of my life. And in 70 years or so, we’ll meet up & talk about it.

I’m sure I speak for the whole family in thanking you all for coming to celebrate Granny’s life and wish her well on her new journey. Every person gathered here today has many stories to share about her, from driving around on her riding mower to partying 'til the wee hours. Hold those happy moments close when the times get difficult.

She always loved surrounding herself with Angels. Now she can become one. Up there raising hell with Uncle Rusty."

No amount of college education can prepare you for a speech like that.  You also can never really feel like you have enough time to write one.

Thank you all for your support over this past week.  She raised me almost all by herself, so her death will definitely have a lasting impact.  If you want to help, the best thing you can do for me is leave your favorite story about her below or on my Facebook wall.  It could be one that happened to you, or just one that you remember from me.

Sandra "Granny" Holdiman
1942-2012

~RoB

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Signature Outfit

In general, I feel like I know enough about fashion to get by.  I thoroughly enjoy Project Runway (though I didn't watch All-Stars), but I think it might be because I'm so impressed by what those designers are able to create with their hands... and so quickly.

That being said, I rarely, rarely look nice.  I'm aware of it.  For some reason, I like to wear all of the same color, even if it's different shades.  I know it's breaking all kinds of fashion rules, but it makes me happy.  I like to wear shorts and a jacket.  Heck, I like to wear short sleeves and a tie.  Which is how we got here:

This is one of the best pictures of me ever taken (Thanks, Paki D!).  I never enjoy having my picture taken, cuz I'm funny looking.  The picture was provided to me after it was slightly altered (way before Instagram, or whatever).  This has everything going, though.  My signature thumbs-up-for-a-picture, my hair, though jew-fro-ey, looks under control.  I've got a drink in my  hand, and you're looking at my 'good side'.  I'm wearing a black polo, and a silver/white tie.  It was something that I just decided to try the night of this party.  (Also, on this night, I played Wii for the first time.  It forced me to purchase one within the following month.)

I loved this so much, that I seriously thought to myself, 'I should make this my signature outfit'.  Polo and tie. Polos are more comfortable then stuffy, pressed shirts.  They have a collar for the tie.  I can be comfortable, look classy, and it'd be an outfit that was distinctively ~RoB.

Annie said no.  I never fully admitted how much I loved this outfit, but every time I try to do it again, Annie says no.  She thinks she's got better fashion sense than me.  I'd love to try the ensemble again, with shorts and different combos of polos/ties, but I guess I'll have to wait for her to travel out of town.  Or, maybe she'll realize how amazing it is after reading this.


Polos & Ties.  You heard it here first,
~RoB