LONGWALKABOUT

Parking in the city is about as enjoyable as going to the dentist. I try to avoid both of those things. I probably do need to go to the dentist soon, or the hockey player/hillbilly look may be in my future. The fact that my last dentist was cross-eyed did not help. A cross-eyed person standing over you and wearing a mask is unnerving.

My wife attended school at a university in Philly. Parking around the school was scarce, so whenever I would drop her off and pick her up, I would use the fifteen minute parking zones in an alley near the back of her building. I would sit and wait in those spots for an hour or more sometimes. Months went by and I got really comfortable using those spots whenever I needed to. I never had a problem leaving the car there, even when I stretched the time limit. So one Sunday my wife needed to make a quick trip into her lab. We drove in and parked the car in the alley.   I got out of the car with my wife and she looked at me questioningly. “Don’t worry about the car”, I said. “It’s Sunday, and I never have any problems here.” We went into the building and came back out an hour later. And,,,,,,,,, the car was gone. That was not a fun feeling. Three things went through my mind quickly. (Hey, I thought I parked right there. Somebody stole my car. Oh, I guess they do tow cars from those spots.) I had to find the surly security guard who could tell me what magical place my car had disappeared to.

Security- “Where did you park?”

Me- “The fifteen minute zone.”

Security- “How long were you there?”

Me- “An hour.”

Security- “Didn’t you see the signs?”

Me- “Yes,,,,, yes, I did.”

Now that I felt like a complete idiot, I gave the towing company a call and was informed that I had to pay for the tow and the “storage” of my car. My wife, who was nine months pregnant and not the least bit happy with me, called a cab so we could get to the yard where the car was. It was one of those days when things just weren’t going to go my way. Our taxi driver kept looking at me in the mirror.   Then this happened.

Driver- “You look like Corey Feldman.”

Me- (Not able to understand what he was saying) “What?”

Driver- You look like Corey Feldman.”

Me- “What?”

Driver- “You look like Corey Feldman.”

Me- “Oh…..”

Things really weren’t going my way.

 

I love time travel movies. They’re pretty much all good. Except for The Butterfly Effect. That’s a horrible film. From time to time I like to think about what I would do if I could travel back in time. Of course I would do the obvious things like invest in Apple, bet on sporting events, and attend Wrestlemania III to see Hulk Hogan take on Andre the Giant. Mostly, though, I think it would be fun to go back in time to mess with myself. Here are some times I would visit my past self.

• I would tell my college self to just pick a major.   I would also advise that self to avoid a class called Race and Gender in the Mass Media. Not only was it complete nonsense, I forgot to turn in a self evaluation, and got a bad grade.
• I would tell my high school self that his mullet is awesome, and that his future wife hates his British Knights.
• I would mess with my early twenties self for being cheap. I would tell him to break down and buy a new mattress. My wife claimed that the first mattress we owned after we were married, had actual hay in it. She said if you flipped it over, George Washington slept here was written on the tag.
• I would tell my eight year old self to not give up on the whole Navy fighter pilot thing. Yes, I loved Top Gun. I’d also tell him that climbing trees and riding bikes never really gets old.
• I would go back two weeks and tell myself that the biggest snowstorm of the season was still coming, and then watch how depressed my past self would get.
• I would travel back to when my past self was working in a crawlspace in Burlington, NJ, wait until that moment when he put his hand down on a dead squirrel and laugh at him.
• I would be tempted to visit the lumber mill where I worked alone at night, and then jump out from behind something to scare my past self, but it would be bad if my past self killed my future self.  So maybe not.
• I would be a guest at my own wedding, and congratulate myself, because I’m a really lucky guy.

  LINKS

• In case you missed it, here is a real photo of a baby weasel riding a woodpecker.
• Today is the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo where Davy Crockett, one of my childhood heroes, died.
• There is an animal in Australia called a quokka.  They are the happiest looking animals you will ever see, and lately people have been taking selfies with them.
• If you need any ideas for this years big adventure, look no further than Lonely Planet.

If you ever find yourself standing in front of a patch of poison ivy, wondering what it would feel like to get it all over your body,,,,,, STOP, don’t roll around in it. I’ve already had this life experience. I can tell you what it’s like.

I went to high school at a church boarding school. I know, you’re like, “boarding school, isn’t that for juvenile delinquents?” Well, yes, juvenile delinquents and church kids. We had both. The school sat on 342 acres in what I’m now told is referred to as the foothills of the Pocono Mountains. That seems rather grandiose. If you put the Poconos out near the Rockies, they would be considered the foothills of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. My dad worked for the church in New Jersey, and we lived on the campus of the school. I never had to board in the dorm, but I attended class with everyone else who did.

Much of the 342 acres that made up the property was forestland that rose up in the rolling hills behind the school. Logging roads ran everywhere through those hills. When I was a freshman or sophomore, my buddies and I decided that it would be a great place to go camping. One Saturday we packed up our backpacks and headed up into the woods with our pocket knives, bb guns, and sleeping bags. We left late in the day, so by the time we rolled out our bags and started looking for firewood, it was dark. This turned out to be of great importance. We started our fire, cooked up some food, and talked until we all got tired. The night was uneventful. The next morning we packed up our stuff and hiked back down to my house. I took a shower and settled in to spend a lazy Sunday in front of the TV. Then it started, an itch here, a scratch there. It got worse hour by hour. By the afternoon the rash started to show up. I had it everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Seems there was poison ivy where I was gathering my firewood. By evening it was driving me out of my mind. Instead of going to school on Monday morning, I went to the doctor’s office to get a shot. Then, on Tuesday, I spent a lot of time explaining why my face looked funny.

To sum it up.

PROS: I don’t know, maybe the morning off of school.

CONS: You itch like never before. You look funny for a week and a half. Nobody wants to spend that much time applying anti-itch cream.

Several days ago I walked out my front door and thought, hey it kind of smells like spring is on the way. Then I slipped on some ice and my son threw a snowball at me. I think that people who claim to enjoy winter are lying. There is nothing enjoy about not wanting to leave your house for three months straight. Even sledding gets old.

We really are getting close to warmer weather, believe it or not. To celebrate that fact, here is my list of the ten best things about Spring.

10.  Flowers. Spring brings all kinds of flowers, and you don’t even have to water them.

9.   The days get longer. Not only is winter cold, it  also insults you with prolonged darkness.

8.   When you visit the city in the spring, it still smells ok. Later in the summer you have to deal with the potpourri of trash, urine, and people.

7.   Baby animals.

6.   Baseball.

5.   That feeling when the sun warms up your car. The thermostat in my Jeep is busted, so all winter I drive around with virtually no heat.

4.   Backpacking. This spring my dad and I will be taking my five year old on his first backpacking trip. We’re going to do an eight mile overnight hike. I just hope I don’t end up carrying him for six miles.

3.   I can ditch my jacket. I hate feeling like I’m putting on a space suit just to leave my house. Oh yeah, and I also don’t like tying shoes, so out come the Reef sandals.  My wife says I’m the five year old in the house.

2.   The trees have leaves again.  That means no more free shows for the neighbors when I walk around in my underoos.

1.    Summer is next.

LINKS

• This video of a sinkhole swallowing two people on a sidewalk in Seoul is both hilarious and terrifying.
• Because Humphrey Bogart is awesome.
• We are approaching road trip season.  Here is a site with routes, so you can build your own adventure.
• Here are the winners of the 2014 National Geographic Travelers Photo Contest.

If you want to have an interesting conversation, or at least one that is difficult to follow, talk to a five year old,,,,,,,, or a homeless guy. My second son is now five, and he is similar in several ways to a homeless alcoholic. He very rarely washes his hands, unless you force him to. He will yell unintelligible things at you once in a while. He can fall anywhere. We went to New York before Thanksgiving this year. He fell into the middle isle of the train twice. Once on the way there, and once on the way back. The other day, I left him standing in the entryway to our house while I went to grab my shoes. I came back one minute later, and he was sprawled on the floor. He had fallen in the middle of a perfectly flat floor. I looked around for something that he could have tripped over. Nothing.

One of the colleges I went to was around Washington D.C. Like any city, D.C. has its share of people who end up living on the streets.  One time I was out with two of my friends.  We were standing in the parking lot of a restaurant, when a guy with bushy gray hair and a beard approached us. When I saw him coming, three things went through my mind in rapid succession.

1. He’s probably going to ask me for money.
2. I hope he doesn’t try to rob me.
3. Man will he be disappointed if he robs me. He’s probably got more money than I do.

But this guy just wanted to talk. We all stood there and talked for a while. There is a section of the conversation that still makes me laugh to this day.

Guy: (Staring at us intently) Have you ever heard of the NFL?

Me:   Sure.

Guy: Have you ever heard of the Washington Redskins?

Me:   Of course.

Guy: Have you ever heard of the mafia?

Me:   Sure. So you think the mob is fixing football games?

Guy: (With a look on his face that tells me he has no idea why I would say something like that) NO.

Like I said, I am now raising my second five year old. So, I get to have conversations like this every day now. I still remember that one, though, because of how happy go lucky the guy was. One of my friends ended up giving him the hat off of his head after the guy mentioned how much he liked it several times. I hope things worked out for him. And by the way, sometimes I do think the mob is fixing football games.

I’ll let you in on a secret. I know the reason why Boston is having a historically bad winter. It’s all because of the Superbowl.

After 2005, it was decided up above, that the New England Patriots should never win another Superbowl. Thereafter, an angel was assigned to the big game every time the Patriots played in it. You may laugh, but there is evidence. Both times the Giants beat them, it was with the help of a miraculous play. David Tyree’s catch in 2008, and Mario Manningham’s catch in 2012. But it all went bad in 2015.

We’re going to call the angel assigned to the game Mike. Mike was doing his job. It was late in the game and he knew it was time for him to step in. And, boom, Jermaine Kearse makes a miracle catch down the sideline and Seattle gets set up at the goal line. Mike figures he’s helped out enough, and the Seahawks will just run the ball into the endzone. He takes a couple minutes to take care of some other angel business, and comes back. At this point he’s utterly confused. The Patriots had won the game. Then he finds out what happened, and Mike says, “Why would they throw the ball? No one would make that call, I am so tired of people. Man am I gonna be in trouble.” Long story short, to make up for this mistake, Mike was assigned to punish Boston and make sure Patriot fans could not enjoy the Superbowl win.

 LINKS

• Burritos are quite simply the perfect food.  Here is a list of the best places to get burritos in the US.
• It is way too cold outside.  If you’re looking to get away, try my island.
• It is one of my goals this year to get into a sporting event or concert for free.  You may say, “Marc, you’re too old to sneak into events.”  Zip it, I’m not dead yet.  This man is my inspiration, and just a fascinating story in general.
• If you’re into the Oscars, TCM is showing past winners all weekend long.

A year after I married my lovely wife, my family decided to take a trip to Scotland.  It was my wife and I, my parents, my sister and my cousin.  Why Scotland? Because we have some Scottish ancestry. My sister is great at being interested in our family history.  It was her job to do the research and to figure out what clan we were from.  It was my job to be psyched that we came from a clan with a history of being cattle thieves and general trouble-makers

The trip was an educational tour that included another larger group.  The larger group had a leader of their own, and we were all on a bus together.  He was one of those annoying know it all guys who tried to become the leader of the entire group.  The guide would say something like, “When does everyone want to meet for dinner?”  Then the guy would say, “Well, I think that we would all prefer to meet at five, everyone will have the chicken dinner, and then it would be great if you could get us all some chocolate cake.  Everyone loves chocolate cake.  Then the whole group should take a walk so we can see the sunset over the loch. It really is quite spectacular.”  Then, if I was paying attention, I would say, “Wow, that guy is a tool.”

We toured Loch Ness, the Isle of Skye, Glencoe, and Inverness.  We finally made our way to Stirling castle and the battlefield where the Scots, led by William Wallace, defeated the English on September 11^th, 1297.  After touring the medieval castle and having lunch, the guide asked us if we wanted to walk to the top of the William Wallace monument, or continue to Edinburgh.  The leader of the other group said, “I think we all would like to continue on.  Some of us have a train to catch this evening.”  My sister and cousin wanted to climb the tower, though, and my dad was thoroughly tired of this guy.  So, our family took a stand.  My dad informed the guide that we most certainly would like to climb to the top of the monument.  This took the guide by surprise, in fact I think he said that we were the first people he had on a tour that actually wanted to go up the thing.  I really hadn’t been looking forward to climbing the 246 steps, but if we were doing it partially out of spite, I was in.  We got off that bus and took our time exploring the monument.  I’m glad we did.  No one told me Braveheart’s sword was in there, and the view from the top was beautiful.

Remember.   My family will walk miles just to spite you.

My father in law just got his first iPad.  The new ones come with Siri and all the bells and whistles.  The next day, after having a conversation with our oldest child, my wife looked at me and said, “What if Siri answered your questions like a nine year old?”   That was a great question.  It would be something like this.

Me:   Siri, what is today’s date?

Siri:  I want to play Minecraft later, because Nate told me how to open a portal to the Nether.

Me:  That’s great Siri, what restaurants are nearby?

Siri:  In Minecraft, you can spawn a cow, and then kill it and eat it.

Me:   Siri, can you give me directions to the Golden Panda chinese restaurant?

Siri:  Can I do chores, and then you could pay me in gold?  Then we could go to Toys R Us and buy one of the new Minecraft Lego sets.

Me:   Siri.

Silence

Me:   Siri.

Silence

Me:   Siri.

Siri:  Sorry, I was just looking at that squirrel over there.

Me:   Siri, why did I get an email from your teacher today?

Siri:  I have no idea.

 

LINKS

• Happy Friday the 13th.  Here are the origins of all the superstition.
• The website for the Friday the 13th movie series is unintentionally hilarious because it uses words like, SAGA, and, LEGACY.  I’ve only seen several of these, but the one that stands out is part III.  It is really funny, and it includes the most inexplicably racially diverse biker gang that you will ever find in the middle of nowhere.
• Here are some examples of really bad Valentine gifts.
• Bulgarian Communist Party Headquarters is one of the coolest and creepiest abandoned places that you will see.

Now that the most important football game of the season (the Pro Bowl) is over, it is time to reflect upon the season that was, and to hope that your team’s best player doesn’t get arrested during the off season.

I am a pretty big football fan.  I live on the eastern side of the state of Pennsylvania.  My favorite team plays it’s home games some three hundred miles away on the other side of the state.  There was a time, when I would hit up training camp at the end of the summer and at least one home game during the regular season.  It was a simpler time, a time before Stubhub.  A time when airfare back and forth to Pittsburgh was roughly a hundred bucks.

I had a strategy for getting into games, and it never failed.  I would make it to Pittsburgh, and show up early in the parking lot at the stadium, with a sign that said “I need one ticket”.  One time a friend came with me, and we had to adjust the signs a little.  Mine said “Need TWO Tickets”.  His said “Need TWO Women/Tickets”.  Anyway, finding a ticket this way involved a lot of walking.  Sometimes it took an hour, sometimes three.  I would walk up and down the lots trying to attract attention with my cardboard sign.  Eventually I would find a person with an extra, we would negotiate, and I would walk away with a ticket.

You do this kind of thing enough times and you learn lessons that you can pass on.  Here they are.

1. Beware of scalpers.  For a number of reasons you need to avoid these borderline criminals.  Their tickets are way overpriced, might not even be real, and, if they had the chance some of them might actually rob you.  I had this last epiphany one time when I was cornered by a really aggressive scalper in an area where there wouldn’t have been any witnesses.  Of course, I did the brave and manly thing, and got out of there as fast as possible, without looking like a complete wuss.  Behind me, I could still hear him assuring me that I wasn’t going to find a better price.
2. Your gonna have to trust a stranger once in a while. You meet all kinds of people when you do this.  One time I met a guy and his son on the plane out.  When we arrived, they asked me if I needed a ride to my hotel.  Sure, why not.  So, I ended up crammed in the back of their car while the dad and his son, who was in his twenties, told me how they were going to go out and party.  They were like “Man you should come with us.”  I said, “That’s ok, it’s really not my thing, besides, I’m married.”  The son really felt like I was missing out, “Man you gotta come with us, there are gonna be lots of girls.”  I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be missing anything.  “Yeeeaaah, like I said, I’m married, soooo.”  I would just like to point out that dads who “party” with their sons are weird.  At this point we were on the highway and the dad was driving like a maniac.  I was beginning to wonder if they were actually some kind of bizarre serial killer team.  Your mind can wander when you’re in the back of a rented sports car being driven by someone you really don’t know.  They did get me to my hotel safely.
3. Storing your bag can be a problem.  Thanks to the terrorists, you are not allowed to bring a bag into any stadium anymore.  This was bad for me.  One particular Sunday, I had secured my ticket, (thirteen rows off the field, thank you very much) and then I realized that I had nowhere to stow my backpack.  I wandered around outside the stadium looking for an out of the way place to stash it during the game.  The problem with out of the way places around stadiums is that most of them smell like urine.  I eventually decided to approach a group of guys and ask if I could put my bag in their SUV during the game.  At first they looked at me like I had two heads, but fortunately I don’t look like Al Qaeda.  We struck a deal and it all worked out ok.  Except for the game. Man, that was a gut wrenching overtime loss.
4. Always wear comfortable shoes.  That’s it.  Always.  Whatever you’re doing.

The internet was created so people could make top ten lists of things, and then argue about them.  It’s like sports radio.  Ninety percent of sports radio is making lists and arguing.  The other ten percent is updating you on scores and reporting on players who have been arrested.

I have created a top ten list for this weekend.  Here it is.  In countdown form.

MY TOP TEN FAVORITE MOVIES EVER

10.  The Princess Bride – This movie may have been higher on the list, if it wasn’t for that whole part with Billy Crystal.  But it scores big points for having Andre the Giant in it, and it’s got like a dozen lines that are extremely quotable.

9.    Office Space – I’m still upset that friends of mine moved away and took my copy with them.

8.    Knight and Day – This movie has like 53% on Rotten Tomatoes.  I don’t get it.  I’ve watched it like five times, and it always makes me smile.

7.    It’s a Wonderful Life – I think it might be illegal in some states to not have this on your favorite movie list.

6.    Die Hard – It is now my Christmas Eve tradition to watch this movie while I finish wrapping the presents.  (My wife usually has fallen asleep at this point)

5.    Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure – Every time I hear Keanu Reeves mispronouncing Beethoven and calling Billy the Kid, mr. The Kid, I laugh out loud.

4.    Serendipity – I am a sucker for good romantic comedies.  They don’t seem to make them anymore.  This is John Cusack at his best.  The funniest part of this movie, though, is the music video for the guy playing the panpipes.

3.    Casino Royale – I wasn’t sure if I would like the new Bond.  I’ve always loved the Bond movies.  Connery is great.  Brosnan, not so great.  Bond movies don’t usually have much depth, and that’s fine, but this one stuck with me.

2.    The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty – This is a new addition to my list.  It bumped Ferris Bueller to number 11.  Now that was quite a controversy.

1.    Raiders of the Lost Ark – The best action adventure movie ever made.

LINKS

• Today is the birthday of Ronald Reagan, and Axl Rose, and Babe Ruth, and Bob Marley.  Each name links to a bio.
• Because I am now a part time stay at home dad, here is a list of 25 reasons kids should be left alone with dads.
• And,,,,,, 25 reasons kids should never be left alone with dads.
• Here is an insane video of a guy in a wing suit making the first ever water landing without using a parachute.