My Roomate

If Billy Mays, the star of such infomercials as "Oxyclean," "OrangeGlow," and "Kaboom".....
.....and Macho Man Randy Savage, the six time world champion of WCW and WWF.....

.....had a bastard love child who loved tattoos and rock music.....

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.....he would look just like my roomate Ben.

Woody Hayes Says Merry Christmas!!!

Yeah, Woody still likes climbing the tree. Notice the lack of ornaments? I didn't even bother putting any up this year because all he does is knock them off. My tree looked very "minimalist."

But without further ado, here are the pics I took of Christmas '08. Not a whole lot happened, just spent quite a bit of quality time with the fam. The crew came down from the QC a few days before Christmas, and even though I couldn't take any time off work, we still maximized our time together.

Here are a few pics from Christmas morning. Carter got approximately 2,437 presents, and I got 3. But I got what I asked for, and Carter seemed happy. Although the two things he played with most were some soup cans and an old doll he found in the basement. Next year I'm getting him a balloon and some bubble wrap.
Here are the twins in their holiday outfits. I would tell you which is which, but....well...I have no clue. Katie, can I get some help here?

Here they are lounging with me while I watched a replay of the '97 Rose Bowl between TOSU and ASU. The sad thing is I knew the first name of every single Buckeye in the game, and even half of the Arizona State team. Jake Plummer, you were anoying as hell, and Pat Tillman, get a haircut. And RIP too.

The day after Christmas I had to work, and that evening everyone came to my condo to chill. Here is the whole gang watching TV after feasting on frozen pizza.
Here I am giving Carter a sip of my ginger ale. Dad freaked out because he thought it was a cocktail, but I told him I wouldn't let Carter drink until he was at least 17.

While Ken was worrying about the ginger ale "cocktail," Carter snuck off and had a shot of Jim Beam. He was a little pissed I didn't have any Johnny or Jack, but he got over it.

"YEEE HAWWWW!!! THIS SHIT IS GOOD!!!"

"LET'S GO STREAKING IN THE QUAD!!!"

"I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT A QUAD IS, BUT THIS MATTRESS SURE MAKES A FUN SLIDE!!!"

OK, so Carter wasn't really drinking, but Katie and Carl forgot his sippy cup and he was thirsty. Shockingly, it wasn't my idea to use a shot glass (it was Carl's), but he LOVED the thing, it was just his size.

Lastly, here I am with all my boys. I miss them already and can't wait to see them again. I talk to Carter every day on the phone (I use the term "talk" loosely), and can't wait until the twins are old enough to do the same.

All in all it was a great Christmas, I can't wait until next year!

Yeah, I Know

Apologies for the long delay in blog posts, but I've been a busy boy lately. And by "busy," I mean I have no friggin downtime at work, volleyball started up, the holidays, and I have a new girlfriend.

OK, so I made up the girlfriend part. I swear I'll have two new posts shortly, one of Christmas and one of my recent trip to Florida. To make up for my time away, here is a picture of Lindsay Lohan back when she was hot and not a lesbian.

Weddings

So I'm in a wedding this weekend, and am of course dateless, although when I send back the RSVP card I am always optimistic that I'll have a date by the time the wedding rolls around, which rarely happens. Anyone want to go with me? You'll have to have chicken at the reception though, that's what I put you down for. If I get no answers my roomate's going with me. But I'll make him be the girl when we slow dance.

Also, this is the first of 4 weddings I am in the next 8 months. Not just going to, but have to rent a tux for. That's close to $500 worth of tuxes for all of you keeping score at home, plus buying the shoes for Ben's wedding, and I'm getting a mohawk for his wedding as well (bride and grooms request). I think I need to start being a crappier friend so I can save some cash.

Why Men Are Suckers

So I went to the mall today to buy some shoes that I have to wear in a friends wedding next weekend (all black Chuck Taylor All-Stars to go along with the tux, nice call Benny) and as I'm leaving a fine young lady calls me over because she has a question for me. Since I'm a male and a female was wanting something from me, I of course said OK. Well she looked exactly like a smaller version of Shakira with a nose ring (yes, I realize that Shakira is tiny, but this chick was super tiny), an accent that was just as sexy (3/4th from Israel, 1/4th from New York I found out later), and she was selling these Dead Sea skin care products from a super nice looking kiosk. $54.78 later I was the proud owner of some salt exfoliation crap and some mud soap. I swear that I've pretty much never been talked into buying something from a sales person in my life, but if I were an Eskimo and lil' Ruthie was selling ice, I'm pretty sure I still would have been buying.

Fuck, I'm not saying that I need to find Mrs Right, but I really need to at least find Mrs Right Now.

Hanging With The Nephews

After my fun filled night of watching Obama make history and then reliving the glory days with Killa, I treked the rest of the way across Iowa to hang out with Carter, Tristan, and Tyler (and their parents, too). All we did the whole weekend was hang out, i think I only left the house twice during the three days, once to take the twins to the doctor and once to pick up sushi for Katie and I. The twins were sick but were in amazing spirits considering, and Carter took to me right away and we played quite a bit. If I left the room he would yell for me, and anything I did he had to do too, including going to the bathroom. Overall it was an awesome, relaxing time. I also brought the boys a bunch of OSU gifts, and here they are sporting some of the new gear. It's also my first ever picture with all three of them, and while the twins aren't looking at the camera, hey, it's the best we could do.
Here is a picture of Carter after eating dinner. He pretty much insisted that I sit with him while he ate, and I also gave him a ton of ranch to dip his chicken in, which apparently isn't the norm. He ended up just eating the ranch with his fingers. It was one of many things I did that isn't in his routine, such as I found out he LOVES root beer.

I mentioned the young ones were sick, and here we are after their doctors appointment at the drive through at CVS Pharmacy. Of course they both got hungry at the same time and were screaming their heads off, so I had to lean into the back and feed both at once. I'm a multi-tasker.

The boys were also put on breathing machines, and of course Carter didn't want to be left out so he kept messing with them while they were doing their treatments. I distracted him by asking him to "help" me cook dinner. Here we are pealing potatoes, and he did an awesome job of rinsing them off for me. Of course he would then put them right back in the bowl that had dirt in it, but whatever. This actually kept his attention for quite a while.

This is how Carter rolls. No pants and a frog backpack. I tried rolling like that once and that's how I ended up banned from the State Fair and on two years probation.

Me and Cart-man at the start of the OSU-Northwestern game. The Brutus Buckeye doll on the right he already had, and I got him his own necklace and OSU teddy bear that he's sporting. Oh, and of course I got him the jersey last Christmas.

Tyler (I think) and I watching the game as well. He really was focused. Also, Carter refers to both of the boys as Tri-Tri (the beginning of Tristan) and I might do the same since I can't tell them apart.

Here is what his onesie said, he wore it just for Great Uncle Ed.

"Mom" says Carter. "My beer is empty, grab me a cold one from the fridge."

OK, so maybe that's not what he said, but I did teach him to throw my empties away for me, and I even made sure he carried it with two hands so he wouldn't drop it. I bet by this summer he'll even be able to fetch me new beers. Ah, kids are great.

Why do they look so uncomfortable? Dad made them change into Iowa gear for their game against Penn State. Although it was an awesome game, I will say that.

OK, so I swear I'm eating better these days and working out (hey, I've lost a few pounds), but I did get the tenderloin sandwich from a local bar in Davenport that we got on Saturday night. That is a normal sized tomatoe slice, and the container it is in is your standard full size carry out box. This thing lasted me two meals and a snack (not joking) and was only 8 bucks.

Well, I had a great time with the boys, and enjoyed the company of Katie and Carl too. Thanks Hoyts!!!

Halloween, Election, and Lamoni

On Halloween, Jistin, my roomate Ben, and I decided to go as the Beastie Boys in the "Sabotage" music video. They may have been able to grow real mustaches, but I had a real police badge, compliments of ex-cop Carrie. Thanks Carrie!!!
Now on to Election Day, which as most of you could guess made me very excited. I woke up about an hour and a half before I normally do to go vote at the elementary school right by my house, and the line wasn't too bad. I only waited for about 30 minutes or so, and was in and out in a total of 40. I also ran into a good friend from High School, a guy I used to go to church with, I knew the cop that was there, and the lady that checked me in knew my parents.
Anyways, after anxiously going through the work day, I went straight to my friend Tommy's house on the Plaza so we could watch all the election results. I took the rest of the week off, and Tommy took Wednesday off so we could make a night out of it. I brought some beverages for us and we would watch CNN and then switch to Fox News when we wanted something to laugh at. At about 9:30 or so we headed out to a bar and were eating dinner when they called it for Obama. There were at least 50 people there and the bar erupted into cheers, and everyone yelled at the bartender to turn the music off and turn the TV volumes on. I must say that McCains concession speech was quite amazing, and it's sad that he couldn't have run his whole camaign that way, but he had to sell his soul to tow the line for the Republicans. Of course we loved the speech by Obama, and the scene in Grant Park was spectacular. There were two black guys at the bar, and both were crying during the speech which was pretty moving. We then moved on to another bar that was pretty much empty except for a really good band and about 12 young black people. Since I had on my Obama shirt they immediately liked me and Tommy, and they were buying us drinks. All in all a VERY cool night.

The next morning I woke up and headed up to Lamoni for the night to hang out with my old roomate Killa, who is now finishing up his doctorate at Graceland. Oh wait, still his undergrad but it is year 7. My mistake. We just chilled, ate Pizza Shack, played wii, and played some beer pong with two guys I played volleyball with that were still up in Lamoni.

Oh, and we did some Irish Car Bombs. Delicious.