Ballpark Figures

 While I can honestly say that I have done my part on all of the group assignments/projects I had been assigned in school, there is one "team effort" I claim that I in fact had little to nothing to do with.

I was probably about eight years old, and we went to visit family in Michigan. My Uncle Bob stopped being a loser for once in his life (don't worry about it) and took us to a Detroit Tigers game. The Detroit Tigers were playing the Tampa Bay Rays at the now extinct, Tiger Stadium. In the sixth inning, the Tampa Bay Rays hit a ball deep to left field which was right where we were sitting. Now, I have gone for a ride on some respiratory system roller coasters in my life, I have seen Braveheart, watched the Red Sox come back from being down 0-3 in the ALCS and seen the Patriots emerge victorious after being down 28-3. This moment was more of an emotional "El Toro" than all of them. I got excited as a player connected with the ball and hit it deep, I got bummed out when I remembered it was a Tampa Bay Rays player and I got really afraid as the ball headed right for our section. My dad put his hand up and knocked it down (a pain he complains about to this day.) The ball proceeded to fall between a folded-up seat in front of us and my brother and another family's chosen fighter dove for it. The Wootang Clan emerged victorious. To this day, my brother will not talk about what happened underneath those seats on the floor planted with popcorn and budding with beer stains that night. Every time I ask, "What was it like, Michael?" He sits still, appears to look right through me, takes a drag on cigarette that seems to have appeared out of nowhere and says "...don't worry about it." What was I doing, you ask? I was sipping on my $12 water, and I am happy to say I only have three payments left on the hot dog, the reason for the markup on the dog I was eating was due to the fact that the pork used in these particular bundled up bunches of meat were from Ancient Egypt and had been blessed by Isis and much like that quote, the meat had aged very poorly. I get to tell people this happened, but as far as my involvement I was not a main character, a supporting character or anything like that. I figured for my part in all of this I would stick to being who I am, an author. 

Pee For This

 I just got the closest I will experience to headlining a UFC event in my life.

I walked out of Market Basket, got in my car and felt the unmistakable urge that comes with Dunkin Donuts coffee divebombing through my digestive system. I thought to myself "It's a fifteen minute drive, I will be fine." I will admit, I was a bit arrogant given my history of dozens of one stop drives to Michigan giving my bladder an air of invincibility, couple that with my career change into education, I thought I was indestructible. The moment the seatbelt squeezed against my stomach, I knew I had made a mistake. I pulled out of the parking lot and put my winter coat on. If you recall, yesterday was rather warm, but I proceeded to turn the heat on in my car thinking I could sweat out the side effects of my incessant coffee sipping. I don't know if this is how that sort of thing works, I'm not a urologist. However, at the very least I thought that the uncomfortable nature of my environment would create an effective aversion to my current obstacle. I felt like a fighter trying to cut weight. You have seen the videos, where they show a Boston area brawler in a sauna on an exercise bike while wearing a space suit, gobbling down ghost peppers while being shown video of the ball bypassing Bill Buckner as someone whispers "David Tyree" in his ear. I may never know what it feels like to have an undefeated fight record, but my seats remain spotless and at this point that is good enough for me. 

Lunchtime Report

 Halftime shows are so weird. It's like "Hey, while these professional athletes rest, let's have some people who used to do their job go over what they did right/wrong." Personally, I think if we are going to have this in sports, I would love it if every job implemented this. Like I am just sitting down to lunch and all of a sudden, a bunch of studio lights kick on and a desk rises up from the floor and this lady is like "Hi, I'm Dr. Fox and alongside me are Ms. Law, Mr. Tobin and Mr. Dugan and today we are going to go over the day film from the first half of Mark, or Mr. M's workday." First of all, in an effort to connect with a student, we clearly heard him use the phrase "hit the griddy" and I believe I speak for everyone here in the studio when I say it would be great to never have our ears subjected to that again. I will say, his background in Cross Country and Track served him well at recess as the kids tired out before he did. We saw him get visibly frustrated as he was helping out with 3rd grade math, but to his credit he did catch himself before saying "You're never going to use this." Coming up, we will see if he can contain what little "coolness" he has left as the class starts the American Civil War unit. Can he keep himself from totally nerding out? Can he suppress the urge to ramble on for five minutes after reading just one paragraph. Let's head back into the classroom and find out.

The WatchSour

 I don't mean to sound like a cranky old man, but what is with technology these days? In order to change the time on my watch I had to simultaneously hold down to buttons and cycle through AM, PM, military time and a stopwatch to set it. Why must we complicate things so much? I choose functionality over number of functions any day of the week. I don't need a watch that tells me how many steps I have taken, the temperature in Azerbaijan and what meal period it is in The Shire, I just need it to tell me the time, is that too much to ask?

The Lights Aren't On (But Somebody's Home)

 3 Ways I can tell I am losing weight

1. The scale has been displaying smaller numbers

2. My clothes are fitting looser

3. The amount of time it has taken for motion sensing lights to kick on when I enter a room seems to have increased.

"Well, looks like all that exercise is pa......" (walks into wall) 😏😏

Judges 7 NIV (Not Including Violence)

 Lyla and Cloé crawled up next to me while I was reading my Bible so I decided to read out loud. Unfortunately, I wasn't reading any of the beautiful Psalms or wisdom from Proverbs, I was reading the book of Judges, which is like the third book I would read to your kids after Good Night Moon and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (which I hear is now If You Give a Mouse Some Celery) and the book said “They also captured two of the Midianite leaders, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, who was by the Jordan.” So, on the fly I was like "Uhhhh, the men were given opportunity to give themselves up. They were given the right to an attorney. If they couldn't afford one, one would be appointed to them." I did it to protect them, but I know misinterpreting scripture is a real no no so I am sure I will have some answering to do on judgement day, but Krista and Ricardo, let me know when the girls read The Longest Winter then maybe I will follow it up with that.

In The Pocket (No, the other pocket)

 First World Problems: When I am looking for my keys and between my coat, my hoodie, and my pants, I have more pockets than a pool table in the Pingualuit Crater during the Paleogene Period.