Non-Tech

So last night Carrie and Ashley and I went to see Jim Gaffigan. What a riot!! We got the tickets the moment they went on sale back in November, and it paid off when we got front row seats!! (Well, technically, there were three rows of folding chairs in front of us (what’s up with that?), but those seats were too close in my opinion; like sitting in the front row at the movies). He had an opening act, Rich Brooks, who was pretty funny, and he and Jim both stayed after the show to sign autographs and take pictures. ...

What a difference a year makes!! Last year I surprised my wife and daughter by driving by the site of the house where they filmed some scenes from that Christmas Classic “A Christmas Story” What a surprise to find out that we were invited in, and they were planning on renovating the house to it’s big screen glory and opening it up to the public! See that tan house on the right of the picture? That’s what we were in line to see. ...

Have you ever had a headache? Sure you have. Have you ever tried to explain the pain to someone else? Using words like “splitting”, “aching”, “throbbing” or “tumor”? Do you think they have any idea how you really feel? I had another of “my headaches” today. Woke up with it, took some aspirin, it got a little better, aspirin wore off, it came back way worse. It got so bad that I was getting nauseous and a little nervous. I’ve had bad headaches, but this was a “top-ten-ever” kinda headache, so I told my boss I was taking the rest of the afternoon off. As I packed up my stuff to come home, I told the guys in the office why I was leaving and got the impression that they really didn’t know how bad it was. Since I get these bad migraines every once in a while, this wasn’t the first time I’ve left work because of one. I was afraid of leaving the impression that I just wanted to slack off for the rest of the day, and knew that I could say the word “headache” and there would be no questions asked. ...

Every payday for the last few months, I’ve been walking to the bank at lunch. I get some cash for our Westside Market trip on Saturday and a roll of quarters for laundry at home. I also get myself a little lunch money and treat myself to a lunch in the big city. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’d enjoy dining alone every day. Once every couple weeks, however, is kind of cool. Lunch is usually a couple slices of pizza from Sgt. Pepperoni’s in the Arcade, but sometimes it’s an Italian Sub from Quizno’s or a Ham ’n Turkey from Subway. Whatever is on the menu, the atmosphere is the real attraction. ...

A Christmas Story House, Cleveland, circa 2005 On the way home from the Westside Market today, I decided to surprise Carrie and Ashley by taking them over to the house that “A Christmas Story” was filmed at. It took them both a couple of minutes to figure out where I had taken them, since the house has been renovated significantly since the movie was filmed, but imagine our surprise when we were all invited inside for a tour! ...

Last night, Thanksgiving tapped me on the shoulder. Let me explain. There I was standing on Superior waiting for my bus to go home and looking right into the snow and wind. I kept hunching my shoulders and turning around to avoid the cold and thinking to myself how much I hate winter and I hate the cold and I can’t believe they didn’t let us go home early and it’s so freaking cold and everything sucks, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. ...

First of all, let me apologize in advance if the following sounds a bit, well, severe. It’s had all morning to bake in my head until it was golden brown and ready to be served… I woke up this morning and turned on the news as usual. What did I see? IT’S SNOWING!! Yes, goddamn it, it’s snowing already. It’s not even Thanksgiving! You know what that means? It means winter is here. I hate winter. I hate the cold with a passion normally reserved for war criminals and Ravens fans. There I was standing out at the bus stop freezing my balls off and thinking about winter. And when I think about winter I don’t think about snowmen and Christmas carols and spiced apple-cider. I think about my car. ...

Ok, so I’m about eight hours into one of my all-day-headaches. I get a headache of some sort almost every day, and usually a couple Excedrin in the morning gets me right for the rest of the day. This is not one of those days. I think I dreamed myself into this headache because I woke up with it. Or rather, this headache woke me up. I remember having some kind of complex dream about work. I’m trying to integrate a database and some existing documents to generate documents on-the-fly for one of the departments and with the deadline fast-approaching, I’m stuck on where to begin. Nevertheless, it’s enough to give me a headache when I’m awake, let alone in a dream. ...

I miiight be a redneck… Ok, boys and girls, gather ‘round for another chapter of"I Hate My Car!" Yesterday, while driving around, I heard a thud followed by a series of smaller thuds. Upon arriving at our destination, I checked it out and found out that the muffler strap that I just had put on 18 months ago had rusted through. The original muffler strap lasted 5 years. The replacement lasted a year and a half. Damn it. ...

So we wake up this morning to a phone call. The first thought that goes through my head was…“Oh, shit! Who died now??” As it turns out - nobody died. Joe got in a car accident this morning out in North Royalton. It seems he was hit in the tire. (yeah - in the driver’s side tire. That’s it. To look at the car, you’d never know anything was wrong - no body damage at all.) The tie rod is all bent at a 45-degree angle and the strut is bent too. Luckily, the lady that hit him admitted fault completely and turned everything over to her insurance company. He had the car towed to North Olmsted Dodge, and we went out to North Royalton to pick him up. He’s getting a loaner car on Monday, so I’m playing chauffeur all weekend. ...