I probably moved the least possible space in a 24 hour period yesterday. In pathetic fashion, I managed to wake up at 2:30pm, fall back asleep an hour later, and then sleep until around 5. I ate some Chinese food which was my lone activity for the day and sat in bed watching TV. During this process I was able to stand CK4 up for Nikkii’s marathon which proved irresponsible and unfriend like. I won’t make excuses because they are for pussies but I made a judgement of error when I decided to go out after JKash’s house warming party. This took me to the next level and turned me into a waste of life.

Considering I didn’t go out on Friday night, I was quite surprised I felt so lousy after one day of drinking. I know I didn’t properly eat dinner on Saturday which is what lead to this display of slothfulness. Previous to the party though, we had a football playoff game which was a well played game by our team. Bake was his normal, dominant self and the team dominated the second half for an easy victory. JKash had our first 2 TD’s which I’m sure he likes me to mention. After the game I was feeling great but alas, my end night proved to be overwhelming. So now here I am on a Monday wondering where I went wrong and waiting for the time to pass until I feel better only to repeat the process. Sick life.

If this is what it feels like to hit 30, I’m ready to quit. Where to even begin. After a surprise party held for me on Friday night, I woke up on Saturday feeling pretty good. I’m not sure how there were so many people there because I only have about 5 friends. Thanks to Laura and Amber, although I’m sure there were many others, who contributed. The night was pretty fun and the ending hours were a complete blur. The places was a mess and Laura, Brookes, and I did some clean up. The 3 of us and Pat got some breakfast at a nearby Cafe and I had to prepare for a doubleheader of football.

This was my first game I’ve played since hurting my knee and it went pretty poorly. We won the first game without too much trouble but the 2nd game was bruising. I was thrown 2 passes and both were intercepted. Add on two plays of getting torched on D and I definitely sucked. The whole team was feeling the same way during this beating. I returned home to a keg from last night and Jeff, Pat, and the Biebs decided to do some work. We had bought tickets to the Limousines at Milkboy which was a bargain for 10 dollars. Milkboy had a special that was a shot of Jack and a beer for 6 bucks and I think I did 4 of them. We, I, picked up a random tall girl from California who was tatted up and completely by herself. We took her to some house party and it was all pretty standard for being completely not standard. The night concluded at 4 am which left me pretty dead for Sunday.

Ck4 was calling me on Sunday to watch football and I wasn’t having it. I finally ended up moving at around 12:30 and headed to the Shee’s to watch the games with Chad. My FanDuel teams all crapped out and the Wild Turkeys are finished which leaves me devastated. I’m still completely sore from football, dehydrated from the weekend, and have a basketball game tonight which will leave me just as tired as I am today. As much fun as I had over the weekend, I’m paying for it in recovery. Might be a slow few days on the site.

I have two ongoing scenarios of situations where people want my money and I want their service. It’s important to know what you want as the end result when you get into negotiating. The current companies I’m dealing with are City Fitness of Philly and Comcast. I need a gym membership so I can work out during the winter and Comcast is offering me a better rate on our business lines, internet, and TV. I want to go into a little more detail into both to give you an idea of what goes through my mind in these cases.

City Fitness has me in a stalemate. The first thing I did to prepare for a gym membership was to get rates of 3 different companies. LA Fitness offered me $29.99 a month to come back with no initial cost. Sweat Fitness offered 16 months for the price of 12 at 45.99 a month and an upfront cost of $40 bucks. This came to somewhere in the neighborhood of $36 dollars a month and it’s location is closer to my work instead of my home which is a con. City offered me 39.99 a month with 39 initial fee and is the gym I want to join based on location. Armed with this info I called City and wanted to get a lower rate because it was the most expensive of the 3. I talked with one sales person who wasn’t budging whatsoever and let me walk out the door literally. The next guy I spoke to I explained the situation and asked if he could get me access to the 2nd location and if there was any discount for paying in full up front. He never called me back. So here I am with no gym membership and starting from square 1 with City Fitness. What I had working for me before was time. Meaning that I didn’t need a gym because the weather was nice outside and now that it’s colder, I have to act. It’s not about the money at this point. Of course I can go in there pay their rates and use their gym but the idea that I’m paying more than I should be doesn’t sit well. Ideally they waive the initial fee and charge me 34.99 with access to both gyms. If I could get that, I’d be happy. It becomes a game.


Comcast was more unusual. Two people who say they work with Comcast (they actually work with a 3rd party called Marketing Plus or something) knocked on our door today and said they could lower the phone, TV, and internet bill. I’m currently with Verizon and Direct TV with these services. The two people come up with a quote for the service that is about 60 dollars a month less than what I’m currently paying and the internet speed would be faster. They had my attention but it was almost comical how easily they thought it would be to open up a new account. Multiple times throughout their sales pitch I made it clear as day that I had no intention of signing anything. As we get to the end they have a quote made up that is looking to be docusigned. I almost lost it but continued to tell them that I don’t sign anything the same day someone walks into my door. It was awkward because in their sick and twisted sales minds they feel like they should be opening accounts on the spot. I’m incredibly leery of companies like these because they say they work WITH Comcast and not FOR Comcast. Essentially they are 3rd party companies who act as a Comcast sales force. They will do any and everything to close accounts and signing anything was out of the question. Could their deal be better than my current offering? Yes, it could but I’m at the very least calling Verizon and Direct TV and seeing if I have any termination fees and what they have to offer. I just share this because people will walk in your door, spend your time with no regard for more important things in your work day, and then expect you to close. Not today.

With my birthday looming, I took a look back at past blog entries to get an idea of my evolution. I have created over 1,500 entries since inception which gives me a lot of material to sift through. I chose November 2010 and after reading a few dozen entries, my conclusion was that the blog was somewhat decent but miles away from where it is currently. The thoughts that were being produced were of someone who was going through the motions. This isn’t to say that I’m not still going through the motions, the difference is that now I know I’m going through the motions. What I mean is that my entries were exact replicas week after week. Basketball game. Drunk weekend. Random thoughts. I wasn’t striving for anything other than surviving which I honestly didn’t even do that well at. Which brings me to the obvious question, what’s different now?

My first answer is that I’m capable. I have more experience and can adapt to most situations. I’ve acquired life skills in talking to other human beings and understand how to communicate effectively and cut through the chit chat. I’ve learned to set things that I want to accomplish and then how to accomplish them. I’m scheduling a trip to Germany in February and have little anxiety around it because I’m comfortable in what I’m trying to do and how to do it. In those 2010 years I was just a dude who had good intentions but no direction. I see things differently now. I used to look at everything through a magnifying glass and now I see it through a telescope. Taking a big picture viewpoint will help put things in perspective. If you’re nervous about something going on in your life, consider that you are a speck and nothing that you do will matter significantly in the grand scheme of things. I used to dislike cold calling prospective customers until I realized that whatever transpires in that phone call most likely won’t mean a hill of beans to the guy on the other end. There are rarely events in life other than death that require stressing about.

I’ve improved on being me. I know what I want in life and have a rough outline on how to get there. It’s impossible to get through life without the help of other people. I try to treat everyone else in my life as I would want to be treated. I’ve done my best to eliminate the riff raff and am looking to consistently “make things happen”. I’ve spent the years reading and learning and now it’s time for doing. You can always learn but doing is something that separates the good from the best. I intend to make my 30’s better than my 20’s and can’t think of any reason why that shouldn’t be the case. I’ve matured at my own pace and have been going through life the way I planned it. This blog is a great resource on that adventure and it amazes me more people don’t document their life.

Where to begin. First I wake up and see that Brandon Jacobs might not play. This is immediately a problem because I have no RB’s to play with McFadden on a bye and Steven Jackson (this guy has been such a busted pick) hurt. I just spent 12 dollars on Jacobs because of this exact situation and knowing that I need a RB to play this week who will get carries. I could try to wait because this “news” might not be correct but with Fitz going for 2.7 and my opponent putting up big points with Russell and Marshawn, I can’t afford another doughnut. That being said, this happened to me last week with Fitz and reading at 1pm that he is hurt and probably won’t play, so I played Stephen Hill and benched Fitz and he ended up going for a 78 yard TD catch. So I’m sitting here scratching my head and eventually dropped Jacobs for freaking Mike Tolbert. This is what my team has come to – trying to find a replacement for Brandon Jacobs!!!!

Football talk aside, I have to repair the faucet that I incorrectly installed and I thought I was going to need new washers because they were too big for the sink but in reality I just didn’t install the washers properly (or at all would be better put). They don’t get screwed in from the top but underneath and I completely missed this on installation. I haven’t attempted this fix but I’m sure something will pop up that makes sure I don’t complete the task successfully.

I’m having more issues trying to fix how my speakers connect to the TV. This shouldn’t be a challenge but it’s blowing my mind. I have two HDMI cables and the one that goes from the cable box makes the most sense to connect directly to the TV. This gets me picture. Now I’d think I have the other HDMI going from the stereo receiver to an output on the TV but this isn’t producing any sound. I’ve tried multiple combinations and can’t seem to figure it out. It’s just one of those things that should work because I have all the components but isn’t. I also need to drill some holes in the back of the TV stand and I can’t do that until I figure out how to produce sound. Another problem.

My final headache comes from the turntable that I got from my parents. I thought it would be cool to listen to vinyl records and it probably would except, once again, I can’t produce sound. The turntable has red/white audio outputs. I bought a splitter that takes the red/white and turns it into an AUX cable. This should work if I plug it into a set of speakers with an AUX but it isn’t. Now I think that I have to purchase a receiver with the phono outputs. I’m 90% sure this would work but the problem is I have to spend money on something that I’m hoping works. This turntable is from the 70’s and I can’t prove it works. It spins and seems to be producing sound off the record but I can’t be sure. Another thing where I think I have everything, it should work, and it doesn’t.

At least football is on but even that is looking grim as I have to take a week off from Fanduel (3 straight 50 dollar losses) and betting (-200 through 5 weeks) so that will keep the action subdued. My fantasy teams are all projected as losers and life is kicking me in the nuts right now. I still can’t play any sports which also sucks because I have all these leagues going on around me. It’s what I told Chad on the golf course, the primary goal of life is to stay alive, everything else is secondary.

Today started in absurd fashion. The lock on the back door has been problematic in that the bolt would jam. So today I started my day off by trying insanely hard to unjam it and ended up breaking the knob completely off. This led me to call a locksmith who was able to get the bolt unstuck but unable to fix it completely because it was 30 years old. Now I had to go to Home Depot (on the recommendation of the locksmith) to find out that they obviously didn’t stock that lock. 90 dollars for emergency repair, 90 dollars for new lock. Nice start.

That wouldn’t be much of a story except that I also broke the toilet seat today. For some unknown reason the hinges of the seat snapped completely as I went to sit down. It left me shifting towards the wall as the seat fell off the bowl. In the same Home Depot trip I tried to find new screws but will probably end up having to buy a brand new seat because two 1 inch screws snapped off. C’est la vie.

All around the same time I also needed to measure the door to have that information available as I went to Home Depot to get the lock that wasn’t there. The tape I used was part of Jeff’s “items”. The reason I use quotes is because Jeff’s items tend to never be fully functional. Meaning that they work, but there’s usually something wrong with it. He’s like the little kid whose toys are always sticky and broken. So I get the tape to measure the doors and begin the process. After doing the measuring I try to release the tape back into itself and it gets stuck on the 23″ mark. I notice a tear in the tape. So as I begin trying to get the tape back in, it snaps completely and rolls back in with me holding 1-24. Whoops.

That left 3 things in about an hour period that I tried to use and ended up breaking them. I came into home ownership like a wrecking ball.