Hallway Update

Passed a student in the hallway today. I got nothin. I was prepared to give my head nod and "what's up," and I got the fake "picking something out of my eye and I don't want to look or acknowledge you" move.

Long Hallway Etiquette

There is this hallway I walk down every day to go to the locker room at the gym. This hallway is massive, easily 100 yards and most of the time is not occupied with other people, except of course when I decide to walk down it. Inevitability when I go down it, there is someone walking towards me, at the other end. Now my question is, when do you acknowledge that the other person is there? I mean it isn’t like you yell, “Hey what’s up?” from 100 yards away, but you have this awkwardness of walking towards each other. It’s where you both see each other, but are too far away to say anything. So you keep walking and walking, until you finally get close enough to acknowledge the other person. What if you don’t know the other person? I mean you have to at least say “hi.” I mean you have shared this 7 to 9 second walk together (which feels more like 10 minutes) from the opposite ends of this hallway; you have to say something right? Maybe a head bob at the very least to acknowledge the other persons’ existence, or a “what’s up.”

What happens if you know the person? Do you try to start a conversation that neither of you can hear because it is echoing off the walls, that you end up stopping and waiting until you are a few feet apart. Well then that brings up even more awkward silence between friends as you look at each other for 50 feet.

Where do you look? That is my other question? I mean if it was a movie and you hated the other person this hallway would be great for one of those movie-type stare down sequences. But otherwise you have to look everywhere BUT at the person coming at you, you have to, you have no choice. I usually choose about 10 feet in front of me with an occasional quick dart up to see when I need to give the head bob “what’s up.”

Now you can’t give the head bob “what’s up” to everyone. I work on a campus, so that is my student response. If it is a friend I will ask, “How’s is going?” and if it is a neither a student or friend I use the, “good morning.” as my main go-to greeting.

The sad thing is is that this enters my head every time I walk down that hallway. EVERYTIME. I think I have hallway issues.

Closing Time

Working here you get involved and know the lives of the students that work for you. It is just the way it is. You are involved. Their classes, their friends, and their families at home, their boyfriend/girlfriends are all things that they share with you. They look up to you and they look to you for advice and guidance. You become a mentor, you become family, and you become a big brother.

I can hear her so clearly, in her best 12 year-old boy going through puberty voice, Andi would sing the words to “Closing Time” by the group Semisonic.

Andi Parhamovich worked in my office as a student writer for almost 2 full years and instantly she made an impression. She was an outgoing go-getter and reminded me of a female Alex P. Keaton. She was determined and focused and knew what she wanted to do, but she could also be shy, vulnerable and insecure. She liked to put up a tough façade, but we knew she was a big softy. She was someone who you could kid and joke around with and she would definitely tease back. I am not sure I know of anyone who has worked in this office that loved working here more than Andi, and the funny thing is, is after the first year, she hardly did any work. She just liked being here and hanging out. We actually didn’t have enough money to pay her and had to ‘fire’ her, but she still came in every day to just hang. I remember going out to a bar here in town one night and seeing ‘conservative’ Andi hanging out (that was something we never thought we would see) she was drinking and having a good time. We actually did our best to embarrass her (like good big brothers would do) as we danced around her and made her feel the whole bar was looking at her. Her face turned 5 shades of red, but she took it all in stride. She was not a touchy feely type of person, and it was always fun to give her a hug or put an arm around her to watch her squirm a little.

Andi came back to Marietta a few years ago to go to lunch with myself and another co-worker at Marietta at the time, Tim (who was in charge of the writers). At the time Andi was working in NY with Miramax, and when she came to visit she brought Tim and I Cold Mountain CD’s and press kits. At lunch we peppered her with questions of what movie stars she had met and what they were like. She had matured a great deal between graduation and that winter lunch, as most people do and looked more like a professional woman than the college junior hanging in my office.

Andi died on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 in Baghdad when a three-car caravan she was in was ambushed. She was working with a group in Iraq called the National Democratic Institute (NDI) as a communications specialist advising Iraqi political parties on how to reach out to voters and constituents.

There are so many thoughts that run through your head in a time like this. War and the causalities of it always seemed close and real, but now seem more real than ever. A friend was lost today and I am not sure why. Andi was there because she wanted to be. She felt that she could make a difference and I am positive that in the time she was there, she did.

Andi, I will miss you. I will miss knowing that at some random time an e-mail from you might pop up. You left an impression on me and when I think of you I can’t help but smile. God Bless, my friend.

“I WIN”

When told we were having a son about 4 years ago, things go through your mind. The main one is: “I hope he’s healthy.”

When you son is here and you realize he is healthy, a whole other lists of thoughts go through your mind:
“I hope he is left handed.”
“I hope he can hit a curve ball.”
“I hope he is 6’6”
“I hope he can shoot a round of 64.”

And with all of those things there is the underlying hope that he is competitive, because without that, a lot of those sports-related hopes go away. Not only for sports, but also for life. I think you want your sons and/or daughters to be competitive so that they strive hard for what they want and try to get it.

Well there seems to be no shortage of competitive juices flowin in Owen.

One of the big problems we have is that he likes to “race” by beating you to a place. Up the stairs or down the stairs. Into the bathroom or into the bedroom. And the thing about racing is that Owen does NOT like to lose.

Now the funny part is, sometimes the big brother in me (not the father) takes over and I pull him back or even hold him back, just to see how he will react in defeat. Not too well most of the time. If you beat him, he hits the floor and starts a fake (or sometimes real) little fit. Now Renea and I have worked on trying to get him to shake hands, win or lose, so that he knows how to win and how to lose, but that still hasn’t stopped the “I WIN!” proclamation at the top of the stairs, or in the bathroom or wherever the finish line happens to be.

I guess you need to be careful what you ‘hope’ for. I have created a competitive monster and now we are trying to instill the proper way to win and to lose, which for a self-proclaimed sore loser most of my life, it is very hard to do.

Web Find

Just thought this was interesting. If you do it, leave me a comment to let me know which superhero you are. I was the Flash.


Superhero Quiz

I want one!

Man o’ man I want an Apple iPhone. Have you seen this thing? It is a phone, ipod, a video player, a web browser, an e-mail machine and it makes ham sandwiches. This is like the coolest thing ever. I think you can also use it as a bionoculars, a microscope, and to even check your blood pressure (I think it might even fold out into a beach chair). Yesterday it even managed to jump Apple’s stock 8 points. The thing is amazing. I am a little curious though. Apple is famed for giving you little bites of products before giving you the whole pie, and yesterday we kinda got the whole pie. Now I am not one to question Steve Jobs, but I am kinda surprised that the jump was made to the iPhone from the iPod. Now I know that it is not an iPod, it just balances your checkbook and feeds your pets without you asking it to, but with the video capabilities it seems like this is the end rather than the slow progression towards the end we are used to from Apple. I mean it would have made perfect sense to come out with a similar type device (call it an iPod) that just did movies and music but used the touch screen technology that the phone has, then move to the phone in the next version in ’08. I guess they couldn’t help themselves in putting together a product that can play you whole collection of Neil Diamond while watching the “OC” and shining your shoes, as it calls in your dinner reservations.

Gator Food

Real quick thoughts about last night’s “national championship”:

1. After watching all the other bowl games I knew it wasn’t going to be an Ohio State blow out, but I never imagined that Florida would explode all over the Buckeyes leaving Tressel looking as confused as I did taking Pre-Calc.

2. This is to FOX. Go get some decent announcers. I know you paid a lot to broadcast the BCS games, but go back to the jar you keep in the kitchen full of quarters and actually pay someone we have heard of to broadcast these games. (And no Chris Rose from “The Best Damn Sports Show that No One has Seen Before” doesn’t count as a real broadcaster.)

3. The Big 10 (11) is not as good as everyone though. Ohio State’s only game was against Michigan and Michigan’s only real competitive game was against Ohio State and maybe Wisconsin. We (I will include myself in this misperception) believed that Ohio State was far above the competition because they beat a Texas team (that we found out wasn’t very good) and a Michigan team (that we also found out wasn’t very good). That’s it, that’s the list and because they play in the Big 10 (11) and the Big 10 (11) has to be good right?? Wrong. Wrong on all accounts.

4. Crisis avoided. Just think if we had a Michigan/Ohio State rematch? We would have all been under the impression that these were the 2 best teams in the country when it is very clear they are not. It would have been the biggest scam in the history of college football. Can you say playoff??

A losing battle

During the course of almost 12 years of marriage there are battles/decisions that you win and some that you lose. I would have to say that for the most part when it comes to making purchases that Renea and I always discuss the purchases and then come together and agree on a decision. That fact I won’t deny. But then I got to thinking that my wife is the best sales person in the world. She has been able to get me to buy things that I would never decide to buy our whole marriage. It all started with Hoagie our Lab (which we bought in our first month of marriage when we were supposed to be “just looking” at puppies) and continued through to new flooring for the house last year, and now this purchase of a king sized bed which we made last night.

All I have been talking about for weeks was getting a new TV. I wanted a new flat screen plasma TV. That is it, that is all I wanted, and the next thing I know we are shopping for king sized beds. I sometimes feel like I have been in a coma and then awaken 3 days later and decisions have been made. She is smooth; you have to give her credit. She managed to change “getting out of the house for the day” to shopping for a new bed. She also can change her plan of attack; she can just chip away slowly at you. We went bed shopping on Saturday, Sunday she wanted to go back, and Monday she asked if we could go shopping on Tuesday evening. I had managed to fend her off for a few days, and then yesterday I get a call from her at work “Mattress Warehouse is open until 8:30 tonight.” I try to play dumb and ask, “What time is Circuit City open?” She laughs me off. Now mind you I never said I would go, I get home and her and Owen are ready to head out to look at mattresses. We head to Mattress Warehouse that night and get a mattress. She is smooth. Gotta give her that.

>>Photo of Owen with his Pink (Breast Cancer Awareness) Serta Sheep "Mean Joe Green" #75

New Year, New Blog

Yea I know, at the rate I am posting new blogs I should just resign myself to a new blog post per year. Lots going on, but that isn’t an excuse.

I have been sick over the past few weeks (cough, sore throat, nasal congestion) and yesterday I finally gave in and went to see a doctor. I went to one of these “Quick Care” places and I have say, they got the “quick” part right. It has taken me longer to go through the drive-thru at Mickey D’s. Sat down in the examination room (if you want to call it that) then had the nurse test my pulse, took my BP then asked what was wrong, 2 minutes later the doctor came in, asked me what was wrong (probably just to verify what I had told the nurse) check my ears, looked down my throat, checked my breathing, scribbled some stuff on a paper, handed it to me, told me to get some samples from the nurse and I was on my way. Literally it took longer for me to write this down then the actual examination. I am feeling better today, but I will give it a few days before I give them the “care” part.