Animal people....SOOOOOO creepy.

I'm all for pets.  I love pets.  But they're pets!  They do not think like humans do.  You can't have conversations with them.  You can, but they don't really understand.  They understand treats and belly rubs.  They don't understand that you had a bad day because your boss made you work through your lunch and as a result you didn't get to watch Judge Judy today.  All that "Man's best friend" stuff is crap.  You put food in front of me that I don't have to work for, give me a warm, comfy place to sleep and play catch with me every day and I'll probably be your friend too. 

I used to think that this sort of behavior was limited to household animals.  My eyes have been opened now, and I see that this sort of behavior extends to all sorts of animals thanks to webcams.  We have a lady in our office who will not start working until she's watched video of a panda at some zoo.  There's a "Raptor Cam" that shows some eagle's nest that people go absolutely apeshit for.  And now there's OctoCam - a live streaming video of the octopus at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.

Correction, there WAS OctoCam.

Apparently the octopus died a few months ago.  According to the website, he had thousands of internet followers across the world.  Thousands!  Thousands of people would get online to watch an octopus in a tank the size of a large hot tub float around and eat an occasional crab.  According to the website, that occasional crab is what did him in:

• It appears that Deriq succumbed to a massive coccidian ( a type of protozoan) infection that resulted in severe damage to his liver, intestines and heart. This particular parasite generally has a crustacean as an intermediate host. Consequently, Deriq probably became infected through his food source (crabs). This infection is common among many species of wild and cultured octopus.

Really?  His name was Deriq?  Was Derek not available? 

While reading about this, I discovered that Derek....I mean Deriq... has a facebook page.  Yes, an octopus has a page....with 321 people who "like" him.    I'm now fascinated with this page.  There's something funny about seeing "Deriq, the Internet Octopus commented on Stacey Johnson's photo."  Among the highlights from his facebook page:

• His interests include sleeping, changing colors, and swimming.  So basically "doing things essential to survival."  Again, animals are not people.  They don't have interests.  They like to survive.
• Sometimes Deriq likes to speak about himself in the third person, such as "Deriq is feeling frisky this morning!" other times he speaks in the first person.  No word yet on how this octopus accesses his laptop from the tank. 
• Some comments on his page include:

Sheila Hagar Deriq!!! So happy to hear from you. I am going to send you a picture of Gilligan, my desk beta fish...he is a huge fan of yours.

(She totally did send him a picture of her fish.  Deriq commented, saying he was *waving* at the fish.  My guess is he wanted to eat Gilligan, but whatever)

Alexa Joy I love it when he puts his suction cups on the camera! XD

 

Susan Steffen Lagerquist Deriq, we will miss you!! Thank you, Deriq for opening our world to your world. You were on my computer daily. Have fun chasing the heavenly crabs.

  Adriamarie Bruns- Arboleda I'm Heart broken, I actually watched him pass away. I knew something was wrong. I will miss him as I watched him everyday while drinking coffee. I am so sad now.

Dorothy Worlein I'm so sad to hear about Deriq. I loved watching him on the octocam every day from my place of work. I will miss him.

 

Nothing like publicly saying you're a slacker, and yes I see the irony in the fact that I'm writing this blog from my desk at work.  I guess I could issue the disclaimer that everyone I support is on the road right now, so there's not much work for me to do, but really if you're reading this it's because you're my friend and don't judge me like that, right?  Right?

Oregon State.....Them's the Ducks, right?

Another story from the trip to Wisconsin I forgot to mention:

I happened to be wearing an OSU polo on Sunday while traveling home from the Midwest.  At the Madison Airport I was stopped while going through security by a TSA employee.

"OS...what school is that?  Oklahoma State?"

I said "no, Oregon State....same colors, so I'll give you partial credit."

"Oh, why'd I think you all wore green?"

"That's University of Oregon,"  I said without even a hint of a smile on my face.  I think he got the point that he'd just offended me, because he just handed me back my ID and didn't say another word. 

---------------------------------------

While waiting at the gate in Minneapolis for our flight to Portland, a guy gets up from his seat a few rows over and walks right up to me. 

"You on your way home from the game?"
I have no clue what the hell he's talking about.  At first I think he's talking to my wife, who is sporting her Wisconsin gear, but that makes no sense either as the Badgers played at home. 

"Ummm.....what?"  I said, mainly because I was completely flabbergasted by this guy.

"From Tennessee?  Did you go?"

At this point I realize the guy thinks I'm a Ducks fan on my way home from Knoxville.  I just kind smiled and shook my head, and he says "oh, just wearing your colors eh?  Well good win yesterday!" and heads back to his seat.  Rachel just starts laughing and says "you guys need to market better, honey."

 I realize that in pretty much every state in Big-10 country they only have one major state university (Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Penn State really have no major in-state rivals in football), but do Florida and Florida State have this problem?  Do people not know the difference between Washington and Washington State?  What made this all the more frustrating is that there were at least three Oregon fans wearing green and yellow on our flight who were in fact on their way home from Knoxville.  I don't know if any of them saw this drama unfold, but I'm sure they were high-fiving themselves on the inside. 

I'm not going to sit here and say that I know everything about sports.  There's a few schools out there whose logo I don't know off the top of my head, or if you said "what are the school colors of San Diego State, it might take me a second to remember."  But I'm not going to walk up to some guy and start talking about his football team unless I'm damn sure I know what the hell I'm talking about.

In the words of DMX:  "It's better to be thought dumb and remain silent than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Back on the Grind

As always, I came back from Wisconsin feeling fat and happy.  Rachel's sister Colleen got married over Labor Day weekend up in Appleton, which is a pretty cool city.  It's a little bigger than Albany, but without the meth problem (at least from what I saw.)  I mean, it had a performing arts center, where actual performers come to perform!  None of that community theater stuff with a bunch of amateurs.  Not that I have anything against community theater - it's just that I'd rather watch someone who sings/dances/acts for a living than someone who sells refurbished furniture live out his dream of playing Hamlet on Broadway. 

Back to the wedding.  Jonah was the ringbearer, but right before it was time to walk down the aisle, Jonah got cold feet and didn't want to go by himself.  So I got to be the ringbearer-bearer, which was alright, until we got to our seats and Jonah decided he wanted to check out the pond that was just behind the altar.  I followed him up there (outdoor weddings provide a myriad of problems for people with small children, fyi) at which point he tries to make a break for it.  I was able to corral him and distract him from his unhappiness with my iPod, so score one for technology.  Unfortunately, the ceremony was starting, so there was no going back the way we came.  So we made this huge loop around the wedding and rewalked up the side aisle as quietly as possible, although Jonah kept asking why there was no sound on the iPod.  We finally get to our seats, and to his credit, Jonah stayed quiet, only whispering when he wanted something.  Unfortunately, I missed almost the entire ceremony because my focus was radar locked on Jonah, making sure he didn't make a break for it or get upset at anything. 

Halfway through the wedding, Jonah hands me the iPod and says "Daddy, I want to stand by Mommy."  Rachel was a bridesmaid (or is it bridesmatron because she's married?  I'm not real hip on the proper wedding lingo), and the original plan was for Jonah to stay up there next to Rachel and the Jr. Bride (which apparently is like a flower girl, only without flowers).  I said alright, and he quietly took his place with the rest of the wedding party. 

When the wedding ended, Jonah and Carley, the Jr. Bride, headed down the aisle, but not before Jonah got a fist bump from his papa.  Then they danced down the rest of the aisle, with Carley twirling Jonah and Jonah giggling the entire time.  It was completely unscripted and pretty cute. 

After the wedding, the wedding party all hopped on a party bust to go drinking prior to the reception.  I mentioned to Rachel that I'd never heard of this happening before.  She said "it's a Wisconsin thing, honey."  Ok then.  Things got off to a rocky start when the driver of the party bus clipped a parked car while picking us up.  He came to a stop, opened the door and said "alright, are we ready to go?"  Greg, the groom, said "ummm, you realize that you just hit that car right?" Of course he hadn't, and we sat their for an hour while the cops showed up to sort out the situation.  I'm not sure if cops are required to show up at fender benders in Wisconsin, or it was because this was a bus, or it was just a slow crime day (of which I can imagine there's quite a few in Wisconsin), but it provided for a couple good pictures of the bride frisking the groom while he had his hands on the hood of a police cruiser. 

The reception was a lot of fun.  I had a great time, but not quite as great as Rachel and Jonah.  Rachel doesn't drink often, but she's the good kind of drinker, the kind that just gets extremely happy and wants to dance....and dance she did.  At one point Rachel's mom requested "Unchained Melody" because she wanted to slow dance.  Rachel starts yelling about how her mom's "putting everyone to sleep with this lullaby!" and requests the DJ play "Pour Some Sugar on Me" when the song is over.  When Rachel's mom pointed out that people were leaving the dance floor when Def Leppard came on, my wife turned into a rap hype man, running through the reception hall from table to table urging people to "get on up and dance!"  I overheard a few people say "who is that girl?" which made me laugh.  At one point I turned to a guy standing there and said "you see that one out there dancing by herself?  That one's mine, buddy!"

I also found out that I'm the third best dancer in my own family, as Jonah danced his little butt off.  He was twirling glow sticks and chasing the laser lights on the dance floor until after midnight.  He did take a brief break before coming back down from the hotel room to rock the party in his Buzz Lightyear jammies.

After that, the week was pretty low key, with a lot of laying around the house and playing in the yard.  I did get to experience the Richland County Fair, which is like any other county fair, except with lawn mower races.  Jonah and I watched the 10-11 year old race.  Picture kids on lawnmowers painted like race cars whipping around a dirt track at about 30-40 MPH and you might have an idea of how awesome this is.  What made it more awesome was how into it the crowd was.  I also loved the PA guy who kept saying things like "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Lawnmower Racing at its finest, right here in Richland County!" which is now my favorite thing to say in my bad Wisconsin accent. 

The only other major highlight of the week was a trip to Madison to see the Badgers play San Jose State.  However, when we got there, the tickets we had bought on StubHub wouldn't scan.  The pimply faced kid at gate six kept telling us that the tickets said "transferred."  I asked what that meant, and he said he didn't know.  So we were referred to a supervisor, who didn't know either.  Then were sent to customer service, which informed us that the season ticket holder who purchased the tickets had requested that the tickets be transferred to himself, thereby initiating a set of electronic tickets which automatically voided out the paper tickets that we now had in our possession.  Essentially the guy had requested duplicate tickets, then sold both sets online.  Anyways, the ticket office told us they were sorry, but we weren't getting in with those tickets.  So I called StubHub, which took the better part of half an hour.  I can't say anything bad about StubHub though, as it really wasn't their fault, and they tried to find us a way into the game.  When they didn't have any luck, they offered me a full refund and told me that if was able to purchase tickets outside the stadium to call them back the next day and they'd work on compensating me for those as well.  Right about this point, the guy in the Wisconsin ticket office came out and said that he felt really bad for us, and to go to Gate 8 and they had some tickets we could use.  Very classy move, and I was very impressed with the level of service I got from both StubHub and the University of Wisconsin.  Goes to show that customer service isn't dead quite yet, only in the cable/satellite television industry. The tickets we ended up getting were in the players family section, which was about the tenth row behind the Badger sideline.  So we ended up seeing the game for free with better seats than we ever could've dreamed of having.  Sure we missed the first quarter, but I call that a win in my book. 

Insanity = Improvement

It seems like every day someone asks me how my exercising is going.  So, it seems only fair to update everyone on my progress.  So without further ado, here's a super dorky spreadsheet, complete with formulas!

 

As you can see, I improved in nearly every exercise, which is good.  We have kind of tapered off from 6 times a week to 3 or 4 with Rachel working late a few times a week and unplanned weekend trips and what not, but all in all I'm pretty pleased with the results.  A few other observations:

• It never gets easier.  You just do more in the allotted time, so you're just as gassed.  I was doing carpet angels and dry heaves tonight just like I was that first night.
• Rachel is light years ahead of me.  I showed bigger percentage gains in some exercises, but she's doubling me in terms of reps most of the time.  My wife is awesome.
•  Two year olds make great trainers.  I think I heard "Why you stop, Daddy?" and "You're supposed to keep going!" multiple times tonight.

  

Good Idea, Bad Execution

Thought we had turned a corner in our passive potty training yesterday.  Jonah announced to us that he had to pee, and that he wanted to do it in the potty.  So I converted his Elmo potty chair into a stool, helped him get his diaper off and stood him up in front of the toilet.  "I want Cheerios," he says.  Great!  We throw some cereal in the water so he's got something to aim at. 

Nothing happens.

A minute goes by.  Jonah's standing tall, holding his shirt out of harms way, as happy as can be.  "You still gotta go?" I ask.  He nods, as if it were a dumb question.  Thinking maybe he's got a bit of the stage fright that his father has, I say "well ok buddy, I'm going to go ahead and unpack, let me know if you need anything." 

A few more minutes go by with nothing but silence coming from the bathroom.  At this point, Rachel and I are a little curious, but impressed with his patience.  I peek in there and he's as still as a statue, staring intently at the water in the bowl.

A few moments later, Jonah yells "I did it!"  We go running in to congratulate him, only to find him standing there smiling, with a baseball sized turd on the floor behind him.

"Clean it up!" he says happily.

Well, ok then.

....but the world still goes around and round

• Just saw the headline "Economy worries push stocks lower."  Really?  The economy is bad?  Who knew!  I just picture the people at the stock exchange going to work every morning and reading a report that says "home sales drop by 2%,"  spitting their coffee all over themselves and yelling "SELL!  SELL!" to anyone within earshot.  The next day, they read a report that says "jobless claims drop by 2,500 over same period last year," spitting their coffee all over themselves and yelling "BUY! BUY!" to anyone within earshot.  The whole system seems hellbent on overreaction.  I know there's people far smarter than me that understand this better, but it just seems like if everyone put a steady stream of money into the stock market, everyone would benefit.  The companies would have additional streams of cash to operate with, thereby growing the economy, thereby raising the value of our investments.  Instead, everyone's trying to "get over" on everyone else, and we all end up taking it in the shorts.  What a bizarre system.
• Being a good husband is hard.  Rachel and I have an agreement about our netflix account.  Anytime she wants a movie, it automatically goes right to the top of the queue.  (sidenote, is there a cooler word than queue?  I don't think so).  The other night we got the film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel "The Last Song," starring Miley Cyrus, Greg Kinnear and some anonymous good looking dude.  I figure watching a chick flick every now and then can't hurt me, and could only score me some bonus points.  Wrong.  So, so wrong.  I can't watch these movies without making some sort of noise during the sappy love parts.  A chortled laugh here, a "Really?" there, and I've sent all the goodwill I may have earned by watching the movie up in smoke.  I really believe that it's a miracle that any relationship works, to say nothing of my own. 
• Insanity is frustrating as hell.  Right now my body's just not strong enough to get any benefit out of it.  I'm starting to get a little more stamina, not having to take as many breaks, but the workout is so damn hard that my body just physically can't do all the switch kicks and push-up jacks that the workout requires, despite having the cardiovascular ability to go on.  As a result, I feel like it's going to be quite a while before I start to see big results.  I definitely feel better and have more energy, but the weight loss/body sculpting portion just isn't there yet, not that I'm ever going to be an underwear model (dear god, that even grosses me out).
• The other day, I was having trouble getting Jonah to leave daycare because he was playing Mariokart on the Wii with the other kids.  I had just resorted to threatening a time-out when our daycare provider offered to let Jonah borrow the game for a few days.  I'm trying to tell her that's not necessary, but Jonah is immediately going "See Dad, Malea said so!"  Where in God's name to two year olds learn to argue so effectively?  How do I argue with "you said I could play Wii at home, and Malea says it's alright to borrow the game, so why can't we just do it?"  I was just about to employ the classic parenting line of "Because I said so!" but I couldn't bring myself to do it because I always hated that response.  I always thought it was a cop out by your parents because they didn't want to do something that you did.  I was right, but at least now I understand why.  Parenting makes a lot more sense when you're the parent, I'll tell you that much.

The Night my Life Became a Sitcom

Last night was pretty quiet around Hickory Hills.  Jonah, who decided against an afternoon nap, passed out around six thirty and slept straight through the night until seven this morning.  That allowed Rachel and I to get our Insanity on.  Well, Rachel got her Insanity on.  I was doubled over by the couch, trying not to dry heave.  In high school, I once ran a six minute mile fifteen minutes after finishing a supersized double quarter pounder meal at McDonalds.  Yesterday, the chicken mango sausages I had for lunch were still affecting my performance six hours later.  Salads and PB&J for lunch for me for the forseeable future.  I gave myself an F for last night's workout.  Have to pick it up tonight, especially because tonight's workout is titled "Pure Cardio" and it just about put me in a coma on Saturday. 

Anyways, I also ended up watching two episodes of Melissa and Joey on ABC Family, starring Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence.  Watching it is almost like going back in time about 17 years.  The show comedy style is exactly like a TGIF show from the early 90's.......a non-traditional family struggles with everyday life issues by zinging each other with lame one-liners and catch phrases.  The only difference is that the jokes are much racier in nature.  There were jokes about 15 year old drinking, penis size (Joey says something about needing to get his "inches" back during a TV discussion), and a whole lot of "Melissa needs to get laid" references.  Really, I had to watch just because of MJH.  She was one of the original members of my "five celebrities I get a free pass to hook up with" list, joining Alyssa Milano, Lila McCann, Elisa Donovan, and a pre "trashy as I wanna be" Christina Aguilera around 1999.  To be honest, it was kind of nice to watch a show that didn't require you to watch the previous episode to know what was going on, and really didn't require you to pay attention.  TV watching has become increasingly cerebral, where even comedies such as How I Met Your Mother refer to a five minute segment from three seasons ago during episodes, which can confuse even people who have all the seasons on DVD.

Around 8:30 Rachel called it a night, leaving me with about three hours of time to kill before I was tired.  This is about the time that my night turned into an episode of crummy comedy show.  About 9pm, I'm watching and episode of Lost when I hear bagpipe music.  At first I thought it was part of the show...some obscure reference to something that only super-geeks would pick up on.  I paused the show, but the bag piping continued.  Trying to figure out where it was coming from, I went to the front window and looked up and down the street to see if I could find the kilted madman who was wailing away.  Then, and suddenly as it began, the eerie wail of the pipes is gone.  As my eyes scan back down the street, a light comes on at the neighbors house, and I can see a silhouette of a woman fresh out of the shower toweling off through the white window shade of her window.  Here I am peeking through the blinds of my house like some sort of pervert.  The only thing missing at this point was Rachel walking silently up behind me and asking me what the hell I was doing, as I get all flustered, grabbing the blinds and pulling them off the window as I crumple to the ground to the sound of canned laughter while saying "it's not what you think!  There was a bagpiper!"  If that's not a scene from an episode of a prime time sitcom from the '90's, I don't know what is. 

Also, I need to give myself a big pat on the back for finally back loading every blog post I've ever written into this blog. You can now read about the past six and half years or so of my life. Some of it's good, most of it is crap, but enjoy. And please don't hold something I may have said five years ago against me. There's a statute of limitations on blog banter. My only regret is that I didn't start this blogging thing when I first got to college. The writing would've been much worse, but the stories would've been much better. My real hope is that someday Jonah (and any future children of mine) will someday be interested in what my life was like before they were born and want to read this. Or maybe my grandkids, if the Internet is still around at that point.