Draft Status

Owen asked tonight if it was football season as I had ESPN on the TV and they had some of their draft coverage on. Renea told him no, but this weekend was the NFL Draft. Owen asked, "What is the draft?"

Renea wisely looked at me and said, "You want to take this one?"

So I did my best to explain to Owen that players that were in college, like Pat White, at West Virginia, could be picked by professional sports teams like the Steelers. I told him each team takes their turn in picking players from college.

Owen looked at me and said, "Daddy, you know what? The Steelers could pick you to be on their team."

I said, "Really? Why do you say that?"

"Cause Daddy, you are in college. You could get picked by the Steelers."

He might not know exactly what I do, but he does know that I work at a college.

New workout

You might have seen the infomercial, if you happen to have cable on at 7 a.m. or any station at 3 a.m., it is a program called P90X. It is supposed to be a program that you do at home, following the DVDs and working along with them. I ordered the DVDs a few weeks ago (off of ebay) and I converted them all to be played on my iPod, so now I can do the videos at the gym rather than home. I have already watched the first DVD to get a feel for what I am getting into and it looks very intense and almost a little scary. I will have to plan a little extra time in the mornings to get through the entire workout as the first one seems like it will take 1:15. I will update on the progress made and we will see how this will all shake out. I am not sure what day I am going to start. This week is busy and I would have rather started on a Monday. Part of me wantes to take a week off and come back on Monday ready to go, but another part of me wants to make sure not to let what I have worked for up to this point waste away by not working out. I imagine that by tomorrow morning I will have made a decision . . . and since my workout bag is already packed . . . that decision seems to have been made.

T-Ballin'

Owen's first t-ball game was yesterday and it was a lot of fun. Kids enjoying the game of baseball (for the first 2 of 3 innings and maybe for the last time in their lives.) No score is kept, and each time a team is at bat, all the players get to hit, also all players play the field. I coached 1st base and helped guide the kids around the bases, I also helped with the right side of the infield, guiding wayward fielders and showing them where to get the outs. Owen did well hitting. I thought this was all about hitting off a tee, but they actually throw the kids 3 pitches (from a coach) and then if he/she doesn't hit it, then they put the ball on the tee. Out of Owen's three times up he hit the ball from the pitcher (coach) twice and only on the last time did he have to hit off the tee. In the field, it was a different story. He was scared of the ball when hit in his direction, so we have to work a little on the fielding skills, and once he and another player were fighting over a grounder. I enjoyed it. It did last long for me as well as them. I had the first basemen of the opposing team ask me 8 times, in the second inning, if the game was over yet. These kids have a very short attention span and if things aren't moving, they are losing interest. No one got hurt and a good time was had by all, you can't ask for any more than that.

Perfection

I consider myself a bit of a fan of advertising and marketing. I pay attention to commercials, tag lines and logos and I am extremely interested in how companies position and market themselves. To steal a line from "PTI," how companies "protect the shield" so to speak. Meaning how they present and defend their brand.

I try to keep up-to-date on the latest in advertising and in doing so I ran across this ad. Very rarely do you find a commercial that is effective, humorous, and does a good job of branding. This one does it all.

Thank you Easter Bunny! Bock Bock

I already linked to this commercial on my twitter, but thought I would do it again here for the twitterless.

Quick story from church today. I was explaining to Owen about communion and I said, "When Pastor gives us the bread and says 'this is the body of Christ,' he is talking about Jesus." Owen said, "Cheese its?"

"No, Jesus."

"Cheese its?"

"Jesus!"

"Oh I get it now, Jesus."

I guess because of the bread he had snacking on his mind.

Bock! Bock!

Simple dinner

I have been craving something off the grill all week and while I was sitting at work today I was trying to come up with something to make and then it hit me, Shishkabobs. I went to the grocery store after work and picked up beef, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, asparagus, zucchini, and redskin potatoes. All I did was put some olive oil, salt, pepper and Worcester sauce on the beef, and vegetable oil, salt and pepper on the veggies. Placed them all on the grill and cooked away. So simple. We dumped everything in a big bowl when done and then you just scooped out what you wanted. It was delicious. So simple but so, so good.

Love/Hate relationship

We have a few really big projects that we work on each year, and one of them is our alumni magazine. Full color, 34+ pages, and over 20,000 copies mailed out. When it comes down to the last couple of days it gets a little crazy and I sometimes second guess the decisions I have made as far as color choices and where things are laid out. I have come to realize that most of the time these moments of irrationality come from working on it too long. Staring at the pages for hours on end trying to come up with the right positioning. Then all that changes when I print out one of the last copies for us to review, and suddenly the changes I was fretting over don't seem so large, and I actually like what I see. I have to admit, it is a love/hate/love relationship when I hit these last few days before sending it off to the printer. There are only a few more changes (I hope) and then we can send this to bed and can move onto the next relationship, er, I mean job.

da Weather

Ok, it is April and there is snow on the ground. This is not good. Where is the spring? Where is the warm weather? I know a lot of people complain about the cold and the snow, but I HATE it, and hate is a soft word, my feelings toward snow and cold weather is 10x harsher than that. I am miserable in the winter. Miserable in the snow. I complain about it all the time and curse Mother Nature via twitter. Can we catch a break? Get a little warm weather and let it gradually get warmer as the spring progresses? I would prefer that over these "teases" we get with a day being 65-70º and then it goes down to 30º and snow flurries. I am tired of it. Please let's just move on. Obviously the cursing hasn't worked, so I am not begging and groveling. Let's get to the spring and warm weather.

Friendship

I ran into an old friend Saturday night at Curt and Jen's reception. It was the first time I had seen Jeff since his wedding reception about 10 years ago. I was in Jeff's wedding as an usher, and you would have thought that we would have stayed in contact over the years, but that was not the case.

What happened? It actually is pretty simple. Jeff came to me at about 3am and 4 days before he was to be married, in tears and having a sever case of cold feet. He talked about not wanting to get married and that he wasn't sure he was making the right decision. I agreed. He hadn't known his fiance that long, and rushed things. Hell, I had only met her once before and we lived in the same town. I suggested that if he really felt like he was making a mistake that he could call off the wedding. He wouldn't have to break it off completely with his fiance (I can't even remember her name) but they could postpone the wedding, no one would care, they just wanted Jeff to be happy. He left my place still not sure what he was going to do, but it seemed to help him that we talked out his options.

I still hadn't heard from Jeff a day later and I was concerned about him and his state of mind. he had no cell phone, so I emailed him and asked him if he thought more about what we had discussed and where his head was. Well his fiance read the email intended for Jeff and shot one back to me telling me to mind my own business and worry about by own marriage and that if I didn't want them to get married then I shouldn't be in the wedding.

Well last time I checked, Jeff came to me, I didn't seek him out and try to talk him out of marrying her. He asked ME for the advice and I was just following up with him. I didn't write her back and just let it go. I went to the wedding and did the whole "smile and wave" thing. At the end of his wedding reception I told Jeff that all I ever wanted for him was to be happy, and I hoped that he was.

That is the last time I talked to him until Saturday. I ran into him walking into the Brewery, and I was the bigger man, I shook his hand, told him it was good to see him and moved on. I don't hold a grudge with how both Jeff and his wife treated me, nor will I apologize for giving advice that was asked for. Not a word from him in 10+ years. I think it is pretty clear where he stands on all of this, he obviously chose his wife over me, and I am ok with that.

If he would like to fix the friendship, all he has to do is apologize. Apologize for letting me dangle in the wind. Apologize for letting everyone think I was not behind a wedding that he himself was concerned about just 4 days before. Apologize for treating a friend that had been by his side, through the ups and downs for the 7 previous years, like a stranger. Honestly, I have moved on, forgotten about it and moved on. I hold no hard feelings although the last sentence my sound different.

So Jeff, if you ever run across this blog, and you would like to fix our friendship, it is an easy fix. If it is never fixed, that is ok too. I have had plenty of time to live without.

Easy as riding a bike

So today was the day for Owen. One of those steps you take as a young boy that moves you closer to being a "big" boy. Today we took the training wheels off (literally) and learned to ride a bike. This morning in church Pastor Steve had talked about learning to ride a bike, and how it wasn't easy, there are falls and scrapes and cuts and very rarely do you learn to ride without "suffering" some of the pitfalls of riding a bike. (BTW he was comparing this to hearing the whole Passion story and not just the celebratory parts that come with Palm Sunday and Easter). I was hoping Owen wasn't paying much attention to the children's sermon as he knew we were going out later to ride.

So we got Owen all ready. Knee pads? Check. Elbow pads? Check. Helmet? Check. Backpack full of more medical supplies than a small clinic? Check. We went to a elementary school that had a large flat play area that was paved and we thought this would be a good place to start. We got the bike out of the car and Owen climbed aboard. He was a little wobbly at first, but we had lowered his seat so he was able to get his feet down quickly as he wobbled right or left. I was the one holding Owen and keeping him balancing and Renea was camera girl manning the video camera.

I tried holding onto the back only, and he didn't like that, so I moved one hand on the seat and one on the handle bars. A few wobbles and he was grabbing my arm. I told him not to grab my arm as he would pull us both over. So we did about 3-4 runs where we started out with me holding him up, letting go and him going about 10 feet before putting his feet on the ground. Then we did a run where I let go he peddled and went 20-30 feet (pretty fast, realizing the faster he went, the easier it was to stay up) and he forgot how to use his breaks and pulled a Fred Flintstone and put his feet on the ground to stop. It was that easy. He picked it up so fast and with hardly any major crashes. We spent time on making a turn and learning how to get started, but as far as the actual riding and moving forward on the bike with no training wheels he has it.

Obviously he isn't going out tomorrow and riding in the Tour de France, but it certainly didn't come with the traumatic episodes that I think Renea and I were planning for. The wheels are off!

Congrats to Curt and Jen

My college buddy Curt and his wife Jen both got married for the second time today. Jen is the nicest person and I am happy for the both of them. We went to their reception tonight and had a good time. They spared us all of the formalities of a first wedding by just having family and friends to the wedding and inviting close friends to the reception. If you are going to get married again that is the way to do it. Small and informal.

Facebook Posts

"Blanky Blank Blankerson is hanging with my grandparents, cousins, and the rest of the family. Life could not be better. The saying of "Family is everything", truly does ring true. The weekend keeps getting better and better. Love you all."

This is a status post by a "friend" on facebook. I read this post and I had an urge to comment "Screw You!" Why is that? Why the hate? I am not a hateful person. I consider myself a pretty nice guy, but posts like these on facebook aggravate me but I am not certain why. Maybe it was the day, maybe I just pulled a Daniel Powter and had a bad day? I dunno. I love my family. I agree with that statement wholeheartedly, so that isn't it. I guess it is just the proclimation on facebook that grates me. The outloud cyber shouting of this statement I think is what it is. The sharing of this with all of your "friends" on facebook, and the proclimation at the end that "Love you all." Really? Do you really "love" me? I mean we went to high school together and were fringe friends even back then and now you tell me that you "love" me? I think you might be moving a little too fast for me lady I like my status updates light, funny, sometimes serious and informative, but this is just irritating. Maybe that makes me a bad person? But I have a feeling she will forgive me . . . after all she does love me.

Had a great lunch today too!

T-Ball

So T-ball officially started tonight.  Some things I took away from the first practice.

• My biggest fear as a parent, especially for this parent, is that your kid will be the worst one. Owen is not the worst player, far from it. Out of 12 he is definitely in the top 6.
• I signed up to be an "assistant" and waited for my marching orders from the coach/coaches. There were none, so I stood there doing everything in my power to NOT take control of the entire practice . . . firing coaches, yelling at kids, getting them on the line and running wind sprints . . . then  I thought I could suggest taking half of the kids and working with them fielding grounders and the "coaches" could let the other half hit off the tee. So I made the suggestion, worked with half the kids, then rotated with the other coaches and worked with the other half.
• Kids love mud.  A little mud in the middle of the field . . . every kid walked through it multiple times and all the shoes were caked with it at the end of practice.
• I was going to post earlier in the day that the over/under for kids injured and/or crying sometime during the practice would be 3.  3 it was. PUSH.
• Owen is like his dad, very into the uniform.  Actually, secretly, I was hoping we got hats tonight and they were cool, but we got no hats and I am sure they will suck.

Damn it

I missed a day. Well there goes the streak. I had a nice little bloggin streak goin on to only have it interrupted by my Tuesday. My Tuesdays suck. They are long, involved, and tiresome. I workout in the morning, work all day, attempt to get my class prep done between work and class at 7, and then class from 7-10. Makes for a long day and does not leave much time to blog.

• New show that I am loving is trust me on TNT. It is about an ad agency in Chicago. This is the world I always wished I lived in. It is fascinating to me to get a "behind the scenes" look at the world of an ad agency.
  
• Logo Update: Still no word from the client.
• Weight Update: Now down a solid 23 lbs.
  
• Starting a new blogging streak today.