I arrived back from Europe at around 7pm. I have a thousand thoughts running through my head and I have much material jotted down to expand. Unfortunately, today is not the day to do so. I’m whipped from traveling on a plane for 10 hours and happy to be home. I promise I’ll get around to a multi-entry trip about all I’ve been through over the last 9 days. Stay tuned.
Laura and I had dinner the other night and discussed our 1 word answer game which I mocked previously. She came up with “new” and I came up with “live”. These were better answers in my opinion.
This will be the 2nd time I’m traveling to Europe in exactly 2 years. There is a roofing show held in Germany bi-annually which is my excuse for going. I was much more nervous last time then I am this time for multiple reasons.
Let’s see if I can get lucky and get a picture like this again.
Last time I was to go skiing in the Alps. Being a person who sucks at skiing, I was dreading falling off the “glacier”.
The Mercedes Benz factory is in Stuttgart which I’ll be touring.
I’ve matured a bit and have a better understanding of my place in the business world and how I may fit in whereas before I was searching every which way. An example was the person who was showing me around introduced me to the President of a 20 million Euro a year company and I blanked when I was talking to him because I had no idea what to ask him about. I remember saying, “what is the hardest part about business” or something stupid. I would handle it better this time,
When I was 22, I don’t think I ever thought of traveling to Europe to achieve business. It didn’t register on my radar. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a more global view which doesn’t happen without wanting to develop it. I’ve started to gain a deeper understanding of America and want to learn how the rest of the world perceives us. For this particular industry, it’s not like there are hundreds of Americans who are traveling and making an impression on roofing. I’m one of the few.
I find European culture to be cooler than America which never really dawned on me when I was younger. I spent $175 on Hugo Boss shoes to try something new. I wear Boss clothes as well because I like the fit and style. I’ll probably by a few more articles of clothing and gadgets for keepsakes from the trip.
When I was over there 2 years ago I noticed there weren’t many over weight people. After that trip 2 years ago I flew straight to Vegas and was encountered by ridiculous American slobs and was shaking my head about American culture. I think about some states like Arkansas and Alabama and how I’ve never been there and wonder if “southern folk” exist in Europe. When you start thinking like this you start wanting to see what it’s like in Nigeria, Russia, South Korea, and Colombia.
What’s even stranger as I’ve gotten older is that I’ve not only opened up my global perspective, but also a universal perspective. When you see pictures of the universe and you see how much of a spec our planet is in the grand scheme of things, you feel really little. It shows how insignificant whatever it is you are doing is. I like to think of Earth and the human species as a petri dish that has evolved into us. With the way time is, we are in such a small window that our 80 years on Earth is a flash. I’m sure there is other shit in the universe but the chance of us seeing it in our lifetime is minuscule. This train of thought could be depressing but you make the best of what you have and that’s living life to be happy and a continuous betterment.
With that I wish my readers adieu and I should get some seriously awesome posts after my trip. I’ll take plenty of pictures and try to get myself into experiences I usually wouldn’t. Sam – I’m single spacing now.
Lately I’ve been looking at the universe and my role in it.
When I look at someone I’ve never met before and will never meet again, I look at that person as a spec instead of a person.
Single spacing.
Bettering yourself.
I pointed about a million readers to the fact that it’s Bud’s birthday today. I probably only know about a dozen birthday’s by heart and his is one.
I haven’t had time to blog recently and this isn’t going to change moving forward. I’m heading out to Europe on Jan 31st and all blog transmissions will stop until February 10th. Obviously I’ll try to take plenty of pictures and have good stories for upcoming posts.
This post is just letting know what is ongoing so you aren’t wondering why I’m not posting.
Round 1 ended with cider coming out of Evan’s nose. Yes you read that correctly, cider.
Adam said Sam was a -320 favorite and I said it was closer to -550. Chugging is one of these contests where you’re either good, or you aren’t so I don’t expect a lot of variance.
A 45 second discussion on the how it was going to start.
Days like this used to make me mad and sad. Not anymore.
Here’s my little story on why I hate the stock market even though I’m a finance major and actually went to school so I could defeat it. Back in ’07, I had worked for 2 years straight and my dad was overpaying me for my abilities. I had 0 expenses. Like literally 0. I lived at home. Drove my parents cars. Ate their food. 0. I amassed close to 40k in those two years of saving.
I read a book called the “greatest investment book in the world”, or something to that effect, and it suggested to put 1/3 of your allotted investment money in the Vanguard Total Stock market index, 1/3 in the international fund, and 1/3 in the bond fund. Minimal expense funds. I took all of that money and did as was suggested. In ’08 the stock market crashed. In a short period of time (~1 year) my 40k was worth 20k. It’s easy to look at a historic chart and say, “well stick with it, it will come back.” The Dow dropped all the way to 7k (it’s at 16k now) and there were talks that the entire financial system could collapse. In periods of time like that, you think the market is going to 0, not going back to 10k.
I ended up selling and taking a 20k loss. Since that period of time I was so soured by the market that I missed the entire recovery and have sat on the sidelines since. To this day I dabble with small plays but nothing like I did before. My financial adviser who oversees my retirement fund thinks I’m an idiot. It’s days like these that I remember why I don’t miss the action. I miss all the gains and I miss all the losses. Today is just another day to me.
I’m always this happy in the chair.
I visit the dentist every 6 months. I get a new hygienist to clean my teeth every time because I am not particular who does the job so I get scheduled with whoever is open. Since I have a revolving door of people looking at my teeth, I get a new opinion on what I should be doing each visit. This time was no different.
I made a 7am appointment so it doesn’t interfere with my work. I use a dentist that I’ve used since I was a kid and travel to the burbs to go. I got there a few minutes early and sat in the parking lot until it opened. While I was in the parking lot a person taps on my window and asks if this was the only lot for the dentist. Wat? I said it was and she told me she was a temp and wanted to make sure she was in the right place.
I entered at 6:58 and I waited in the waiting room for 15 minutes. I was a bit confused because I was the first person, got there on time, and still had to wait. When I was put into the chair, I was met with the parking lot woman. Wonderful.
The woman was 40 or so and we start off by her giving me protective eye wear. I looked at the eye wear, looked at her, started laughing, and put on my sunglasses to have my teeth cleaned. Then she said, “I’ve got a runny nose, tis the season.” Then she blew her nose and washed her hands. When you’re not sick, the last people you want to be around are sick people. Comforting. She gets to work and asks me how often I floss which I said 4-5 times. She said, “you know it’s supposed to be 7 right?” Then she gave me a mirror and showed me how to floss properly. This was all going on while she rested her boobs on my head as she cleaned my teeth. I think she was purposely doing it because she would say, “lean more to the side,” then plant them in my face.
This is how Curb Your Enthusiasm’s are created. I would never be able to go to the dentist have them clean my teeth and leave without a story. For what it’s worth, the actual dentist is really normal.
This is the picture of Obama at his first State of the Union Speech and a picture of the one last night. Full gallery of presidents here. All of this is from Reddit.
The comments
Even his bright red power tie has transformed to a dull grey and black one. A draining job indeed.
The look on his face says it all, too. Pretty much from “Let me answer that question you have!” to “Seriously? You dumb motherfucker.”
Fuck, who’d want that job? Seriously.
Can you imagine what Bernie will look like after 8 years.
Spending time with CK4, JKash, Ambsy Bambsy, and Little Jordy provided enough material for a blog post. Plus as JKash assured me, it will lead to more blog traffic. Normally I’m not a huge fan of recapping what I do in my life but I’ll make an exception.
I held his beer while I read to him.
I haven’t seen Jordan in about 8 months and can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a kid. Jordan is almost 2 and and his yoga poses are precious. He knows more English than I know German and even said “Slate Roof” when I was there. I’m not going to overrun the blog with Jordan because he does something cute every 5 seconds. You tell me.
Jordan made a sea horse out of play-doh that looked pretty much like a snake and then Amber showed him up designing a beautiful, exact replica of a seahorse. She’s been practicing. After hanging out for a while, the guys went bowling at Facenda Whitaker. The special was 15 bucks for 2 1/2 hours of bowling which is dirt cheap compared to the city. I brought my own ball and was taking ridicule. We started off the first two games and I was 109 and 112. Ck4 bombed out of the blocks with a 165 avg for the first 2 games and JKash rolled a respectable 151 in game 1. Ck4 was saying how he was going to dominate me on the lanes and he was proving it until….
I moved over a couple of boards and starting rolling down the the right side of the lane and magic struck. After 2 open frames, I rolled 9 strikes in a row to put up a 254 for my 2nd highest score game ever. The universe was right again. We rolled another 4 games to finish with 7 on the night much to Ck4’s delight. I can honestly say that nothing pleases Chad more than going to value town. JSmash wanted to come out but wasn’t quite in Mad River form. We had a good night and I enjoyed the evening which was a pleasant change from hammer time at the bar.
I wish I wouldn’t have written the golf course entry as my first post of the year because I know writing trash rewards nothing. However, when I don’t publish a post for 5 days, people start getting antsy and stop going to the site. Just so it’s understood when I write “people”, the past 2 days bring ~100 people who land on this site from direct traffic or social media who I consider actual traffic (there are more who land on pages but it’s fake traffic). Although not a huge number, there’s an urgency to post even when I have nothing to write about. What I’ll do in the future is when I have nothing good to write about, I won’t post. This will lead to less updates but better content.
On top of that, I haven’t had time to sit down and write like I do right now. I’ve been busy at work and the Christmas and New Years kept me busy. I actually prefer the work week to holidays because I’m productive vs unproductive. I woke up at noon at least 3 of the days around the new year. It then takes me a few days to recover from the rough days and now I feel like myself again.
I was going to make a resolution post but I don’t like the idea of making stupid promises to myself that I’m going to break. Just kidding.
To cap off this post with this whole blog and where it’s at because I did title that it was in limbo. I was drunk talking to Gourlay on New Years Day and telling him that I think he is making a mistake quitting on his blog because so many people were enjoying it. Then it strikes me that I’m being an asshole because what if its Gourlay who doesn’t enjoy it? I think I’m being a great guy motivating someone to do something that he dreads doing. The fuck? I have good intentions but why should I be spreading my opinion? Then you start getting into this thought and you decide to shut the fuck up because who cares about my opinion? I told people that What’s App is cooler in younger circles than Facebook. Guess what? Facebook OWNS What’sApp. Nice opinion. That’s how I feel about this blog. A few dozen people read this and I seriously ask, why am I doing this? This is where Sam and I differ in opinions. He would say he likes doing it because it documents his life and doesn’t care if people read it. I would want you to hit me across the head with a 2×4 ala Tommy Boy if that was my thought process. This blog is my life’s work. This is the heart and soul of my life and I’m looking for discussion. I want people to read it and say, “I completely disagree with you and you’re a fucking idiot.” If no one reads it I might as well keep a diary. That’s why when someone takes the time to comment it’s like, thank the lord someone reads this and actually thinks about what I’m writing. That’s not a plea for comments either, it’s only what it’s like from this perspective. I’ve sat here 2,415 times and wrote posts for free. Most likely no one would pay me anyway to write this but I understand why Gourlay says fuck that shit. So that’s my take to open up 2016. Everything will go exactly the same with my posting when I want to and trying to make better posts with better pictures and better titles and better verbiage and better content so that the people who read this enjoy coming to my site.
If everyday was like the one I experienced yesterday, I would not have much fun. This is coming from having a lot of fun so I suspect it’s the ups and downs associated with life. If you have a ton of fun, there’s a good chance you experience a let down. Monday was my let down.
This weekend I did a bar crawl in Manayunk and went to the Eagles game on Sunday. It was also the biggest week of the year in fantasy football which if you can’t guess by my tone, didn’t end well. I’ve come to hate weekend recaps of my own experiences so I’ll touch lightly on the bar crawl.
No hands bar.
We started at 3pm and visited 12 bars of Manayunk. Each bar would have its own rule like you can’t use your left hand, you have to repeat the last word of every sentence, and your hands were zipped tied to give an idea. It was a lot of fun but going on a bar crawl of this nature has consequences the next day.
I was woozy from the bar crawl but still made my way to Evan’s for the games on Sunday where I watched ODB put on a show. I’ll most likely chip in on this on another post. The bottom line is the games went terrible for me. In my previous post I wrote how going against the same players would be good, it turned out that the opposite happened as Cam and AB destroyed any inklings of hope I had in 2 leagues. I even lost one last night when Brandin Cooks didn’t outscore Golden Tate by 8 and my bet didn’t cover. It was just one of those days.
I’m well aware this post sucks but I wanted to get something down because I haven’t posted in a while. Normal posting should resume shortly.
