Flack

Last night Mason and I watched a particularly gross episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not together. During the opening segment a guy attempted (and broke) the world's record for sticking giant South American hissing cockroaches into his mouth. The guy's cheeks bulged as he shoved nine or ten of the disgusting little creatures into his mouth. After beating the record the guy opened his mouth and the cockroaches dribbled out of his mouth on to the ground below. Mason and I both commented on how gross the entire thing was. The thing is, I hadn't noticed Morgan watching the program from behind us. Thirty seconds later she came around me, standing between the two of us and the television. Her cheeks bulged. She opened her mouth, green beans poured out of her mouth out on to the carpet. "I eat BUGS!" she exclaimed. Thank goodness she didn't.

You're probably right; that's probably why they don't have craps or roulette there. :/

(Lucky you -- two updates today!) Long before Mason was born, I knew that someday Susan and I would be very interactive parents. My parents were both very involved in my early education. My mom volunteered as a homeroom mother every single year. My dad brought our personal computer (a TRS-80 Model III) to my classroom and did a computer demonstration, introducing an entire classroom of kids (and a few teachers) to computers for the very first time. My dad came to school and spoke on career day; my mom became personal friends with many of my teachers. These are things I will never forget, and it has been a personal goal of mine to be as involved in my kids' schooling as my parents were with mine. Monday when Susan and I went to pick up Mason from The Launching Pad, his teacher told us that the kids had been learning about the ocean and wondered if I would be interested in coming to their class the next morning and talking about the ocean for five minutes. I was about to say no when I looked down and saw the sign-up sheet, which had the numbers 1-20 on it and not a single name written on it. I told Mason's teacher that I would come up with something. This gave me less than 24 hours to come up with a good idea, but I was sure one would hit me. Fast forward to Tuesday morning. It's 7:30am, I'm in the shower, and I have no idea what I'm going to talk about. My presentation is at 9am. As I'm getting out of the shower I hear the kids watching SpongeBob. Suddenly, the whole presentation falls into place. I'm going to show the kids pictures of SpongeBob characters, followed by pictures of what the real sea creatures look like. I get on the Internet and find pictures of five SpongeBob characters (SpongeBob, Patrick Star, Mr. Krabs, Plankton, and Ms. Puff) along with real pictures of a sea sponge, a starfish, a crab, plankton, and a pufferfish. As I'm printing out the pictures I come up with the idea of showing the kids each pair of pictures and asking them what the similarities and differences are between the two pictures. To make things even better, Susan's sister Becky has a large collection of seashells and other marine items including a starfish, some seahorses, and an awesome stuffed pufferfish. Gold! I arrived at Mason's class a few minutes early. A few of the teachers spied out collection of dead marine animals and came down to check out what we were doing. I guess the kids had been told they were having a visitor as they were really eager to see us. I winged the entire presentation, making up a story about how I had gone to the ocean looking for SpongeBob and I couldn't find him but instead I found the real things that SpongeBob was based off of. Things went excellent. As I held up the two pictures of SpongeBob and a sea sponge, I asked, "what's the difference between these two things?" One girl yelled, "THAT ONE'S SPONGEBOB AND THAT ONE'S NOT." Can't argue with that. Another kid noted, "THAT ONE'S NOT WEARING SHOES." True. I also got some great answers about plankton. I explained that real plankton is often so small that you need a microscope to see it. Then when I asked what was different between the two pictures, another kid yelled, "THAT PLANKTON'S ALWAYS TRYING TO STEAL THE KRABBY PATTY SECRET FORMULA." Man, these kids know their SpongeBob! About two thirds the way through my presentation Susan began pulling out the starfish, coral and seashells for the kids to pass around and at that point they were pretty much done listening to me. The kids seemed to have a great time, and I hope it's something they remember for a long time.

Sunday evening Susan and I went to Riverwind Casino with Andy and Lea (or as I like to say now, Mr. and Mrs. Willrath -- how cool is that?) Susan and I each took $100 to spend. I lost forty bucks right off the bat on slot machines, and then lost another forty on Jacks or Better poker machines (which I normally do really well at). With my last twenty I ended up winning $40.50 on one machine and $47 on another -- that put me just slightly ahead. Lea and Susan migrated to the $2 blackjack table. Keep in mind that in Oklahoma Indian Casinos, you have to pay a fifty-cent "tribal tax" PER HAND. That makes it hard to come out ahead when betting $2/hand. After watching the girls play for a while, Andy and I sat down at a $5/minimum table and played a few hands. Before long I was back down $60. In a desperation comeback move I bet $40 on one hand ... and busted. That left me flat broke. After that I walked over to see how Susan was doing. She still had $40 in chips left, so I made her give me $20. I went back over to the table I had been at and bet all $20 on one hand. I won, and doubled my money. I let the $40 ride ... and lost. Back to zero. Ten minutes later when I checked in with Susan, she was down to $11.50. "Let's take our money and leave," she said. I said okay. When she handed me her chips, I ran back over to the $5 table and threw them all done. $11, one hand, let's go baby!! The dealer dealt me a 3, followed by an 8 -- a perfect "double down" hand (where you can double your bet and only hit one card). The only problem was, I was broke! The dealer asked if I wanted to double down. I reached in my pocket, pulled out my car keys, and tossed them on the poker table. Everyone (including the dealer) laughed. The dealer then informed me that my car was not legal tender in the casino. "I'll spot you," said the stranger sitting next to me as he slid $11 in chips over to my stack. The dealer dealt me one card ... a KING! 21! I ended up with $44, and everyone applauded. I split the pile with the friendly stranger next to me and simply said, "pleasure doin' business with you." When I went to cash out I found a $40 payout voucher I'd received from a machine and forgotten about. Combined with the poker chips I'd just received, that means I left the casino with $64, meaning I only lost $36 (which, while not good, was far less than I thought I had lost.)

Even though my children are only five and (almost) two, I enjoy the fact that they are becoming evil, manipulative little devils. Morgan's still somewhat of an amateur, but she's learning. Whenever I threaten to spank her she bats her eyelashes, clasps her hands together and cries, "no da da. No da da!" Mason's slightly better at the game, but not much. Last night, Mason stayed up over an hour past his bedtime. By the time we got him to lay down he was literally wailing. From the living room I yelled at him to come out of his bedroom, which he did. When I asked him what the problem was, he stopped crying long enough to say he didn't get to play Nintendo Wii before bedtime. "Now Mason," I said, "you got to play Wii three different times today. You played this morning before Morgan got up, after lunch, and before we went to granny's. You played plenty of WIi today. Now go to bed. Again, he wailed. "But dad, you won't let me take my Gameboy to bed," he said. "That's right," I said, "because it's an hour past your bedtime and you need to go to sleep. Again, he cried. "But daaaaad, I want my magic wand I lost on the train," he whined. For a moment this one threw me for a loop -- then I remembered that, six months ago while visiting the local train museum, Mason had dropped his plastic toy magic wand underneath the train, where it disappeared. I couldn't help but laugh when he said that. I don't know what synapse fired that made him think that particular straw was the one to grasp for, but I was done with his act by then. I began opening and closing my hand in front of him. "Do you know what I'm doing?" I asked him. "Spanking exercises?" he managed to ask, in between sobs. "Yup. Now get to bed," I said one last time. This time, he did.

Earlier in the week Susan noticed signs posted around the entrance of our neighborhood announcing that this weekend would be garage sale day for not only our neighborhood, but all four neighborhoods that corner the Reno and Czech Hall intersection. We don't get a chance to garage sale as often as we would like, so these neighborhood garagle sales are a good way to get the best bang for your buck, so to speak -- you can hit 20 or more garage sales in one day and get the whole garage sale thing out of your system for a while. For this morning's garage sales we charged up the golf kart (which is quickly becoming a staple of our neighborhood garage sale experience) and invited mom, dad and Linda over to join us. Mom brought Linda, Linda brought Griffin, Dad brought donuts. As we stepped out into the neighborhood to begin our shopping adventures we found ... nothing. Lots and lots of nothing. No garage sales on our street, no garage sales on our block. Per dad's advice we ditched the idea of searching for garage sales via golf kart or foot and took to our cars. Between the four neighborhoods all we probably found a dozen garage sales and only stopped at half of them. Throughout the years Susan and I have honed our "shop from the street" skills. Sometimes you'll spot boxes of treasure that need to be dug through, but if we drive by and all we can see are clothes, we're probably not stopping. Mason got a few small odds and ends -- a couple of small, electronic handheld games (Football and Simon), a plastic golf set (he's a putt putt man, like myself), and a big cardboard map of the United States with holes in it to hold quarters from each state. Mason was determined to not like the map -- I told him it would be fun, but he didn't really understand what it was. I bought it for him anyway (it was a buck). Would you believe that kid pouted all the way home? At one point he was sitting in the back of the truck, arms crossed and head down. When I asked him what the problem was he said, "I did NOT want that TOY." Well good grief. At the next stop dad dug out some quarters and Mason found where they were on the map and he started to get it. Then when we got home Granny dug through her purse and Mason got a few more. I think after he was all done he got 12 quarters filled in the map, which not only kept him busy for a while but also paid for the dumb thing three times over. Whoever organized our neighborhood garage sale needs to head over to Sun Valley next spring and see how it's really done.

And that's just it; those things that seem big to us at the time don't seem big (or aren't even noticed) by anyone else.

#01. Last week, Mason won an award for being the most outstanding student in his grade. Only one award was presented per class. The awards were based on attendance, attitude, manners, and grades. For his achievements, Mason won two paid buffets to Incredible Pizza along with $10 in tokens. Congrats! #02. Last Friday, Mason performed in the end-of-year talent show at Shedeck Elementary. Mason performed two magic tricks on stage in front of the entire school, and he was the only pre-K kid who performed in the talent show. I videotaped Mason's performance and will be posting it online just as soon as I can get the video transferred over to the computer. #03. At the mall yesterday, I bought Mason a pair of Heelys. Heelys are the shoes that have a wheel in the heel. The wheel is retractable for normal walking, and pops out for rolling. So far he hasn't broken his neck ... but then again the week is still young.

This is a ridiculously long post, so I've broken it into multiple sections for you. Andy and Lea's wedding went off without a hitch, thank goodness. I meant to post after Friday night's rehersal, but I got home so late and still had so much to do that I didn't get a chance to until today. Friday night was the wedding rehersal, followed by the rehersal dinner. Friday Night / The Rehersal It's amazing to me how well most weddings look compared to how badly most rehersals go. It's kind of like a magic trick, you know? Once you learn the secret it's easy to think that the trick wouldn't fool a soul, but when you don't know how a trick works they can be pretty convincing. Our rehersal Friday night consisted of a bunch of goofballs (Andy's groomsmen) trying to figure out exactly where and in what order to stand in. The wedding coordinator was kind enough to place pieces of masking tape on the floor to remind us where to stand, but I wasn't sure even that would help the lot of us. Our part was broken into bite-size commands for our tiny man-brains -- walk in, don't walk up the steps, walk up the steps, face the about-to-be-married couple, turn and face the audience, and at some point scoot back. We ran through everything once and after all the guys were thoroughly confused the rehersal was deemed a success. The bridesmaids had no problems picking up the maneuvers. I think women dream of the day they will get to participate in their friends' weddings, while guys dream of creative ways to get out of the obligation. (I kid, I kid ...) Friday Night / Rehersal Dinner After the rehersal the entire wedding party migrated to the Mustang community Center for some delicious food, provided by Zios. Susan and the kids skipped the rehersal but met us over at the rehersal dinner. Both kids have had simply unlimited amounts of energy from from being out of daycare over the past week. Being uprooted from their schedules has turned them both into little toots this week. The rehersal dinner was no exception; even before most people had finished eating Mason was doing handstands and rolling around on the floor with Morgan in tow. I know the kids are young but it's still a little embarassing when you have seemingly no control over them. Susan and I finally decided the quickest solution was to just get them back home and so that's what she did. After dinner, while everyone else began decorating the hall for Saturday's party, I tried out the sound system for the first time. The Community Center provided the speakers, microphone, and some of the necessary cables. I provided my laptop, a CD player (as a backup), my own mixing board, a mic stand, and a few other odds and ends. I was a little nervious as this was the first time I had connected "my stuff" up to "their stuff", but fortunately everything worked swimmingly. In fact, as I began testing my music system people began singing and dancing and having such a good time that the night kind of evolved into an inpromptu party of its own. The decorating wrapped up around 10:30pm, and I got home about ten minutes after that. (Side story. Some friends of mine from out of town planned a vacation this weekend that begins with a train ride leaving from OKC. They arrived at our house Friday night while Susan and I were at the rehersal dinner. When I got home the two of them were (barely) awake. We talked for a few minutes and then everyone went to bed.) Saturday Morning / Pictures Saturday morning began by taking Brian (Icebreaker) and Ginger down to the train station for an 8:25am departure. Then it was back to the house to finish up the playlist. By this point in time my music collection for the wedding had swelled to a ridiculous size. The reception was scheduled to run for four hours, but as I told Andy, should it run up to about 60 days in length, I had them covered. My main goal was to have every song they could possibly want. For example, I found compilations that included the top 100 songs from every year of the 1960's and the 1980's (that's 2,000 songs right there). Of course I didn't have everything everybody wanted, but more on that later. Pictures were to begin at 11:45am with the wedding scheduled at 2pm. I arrived 15 minutes early, already wearing my tux. The picture taking didn't start until around noon, but only took about half an hour to complete. By 12:30 we were cut loose until the wedding, which created a logistical problem for me as I live 15 minutes away from the church. I ended up driving home, catching a cat nap, and then driving back for our 1:30pm agreed upon arrival time. Saturday Afternoon / The Wedding All the groomsmen arrived basically on time give or take a few minutes. Larry (Andy's dad) hung out in the bachelor's cove with us while everyone got dressed. Apparently for both the photo shoot and the wedding I was the only person who got dressed at home and just slipped on the tuxedo jacket after getting out of the car. I thought that's what you were supposed to do? (Shrug.) Nobody seemed particularly nervous (not even Andy). Andy's groomsmen consisted of three firefighters (Mike D, Tommy, and his brother-in-law Kenny), his brother Matt, and myself. I don't know if you know this or not but if you hang around firemen for more than five minutes eventually someone will begin talking about dead bodies. So while the six of us were standing out in the hallway waiting to be led into the chapel, everybody was discussing how many pedestrians they had seen get hit by cars. Right while Andy was telling us the story about how they had seen some guy on a bicycle get hit by a drunk driver one night after bowling, the pastor motioned for us to walk in. Remind me to ask Andy how that story ends. The ceremony goes pretty well. Like dumb dogs we (the groomsmen) all walk to our respective pieces of masking tape on the floor and stand there. My only thought through most of the ceremony was to do what Matt does. Matt is Andy's brother and, as the best man, was standing directly in front of me, next to Andy. So when Matt walked, I walked. When Matt turned, I turned. I suspect everyone behind me was doing the same thing, so had Matt screwed up he would have led us all astray. Fortunately, he didn't. So during the ceremony, we (groomsmen) are staring at the bridesmaids, when I notice the maid-of-honor is motioning something. I am an easily distracted person and so as I'm watching her I realize she is mouthing something about "the ring" and making a hand signal to someone in the audience, who then gets up and leaves the chapel. I begin to realize that the maid of honor has forgotten the wedding ring, and a race is on to find it before we get to the part where the preacher says, "do you have the ring?", because the answer is going to be, "no I don't." Apparently the person who left the chapel was Lea's mom, who returns and shrugs her shoulders as if to say, "I couldn't find it." Now you have to realize at this point that in the entire place there are only about four people who realize what is going on -- the maid of honor, the bridesmaid next to her, the bride's mom, and me. So now in a sick way I'm watching wondering what's going to happen. So then I hear the preacher ask, "do you have the ring?" The maid of honor leans over and says something and I'm not sure if they used a different ring or simply faked it, but I was standing three feet away and I couldn't tell the difference. I asked Susan after the ceremony and she said she hadn't noticed a thing and I doubt anyone else in the entire place noticed. Immediately after the wedding the maid of honor left crying and I'm sure she felt like she had ruined a moment or something but you know, these kinds of things are funny stories we can look back and laugh at in due time. If I know Andy and Lea (and I do) I'm sure they are laughing about it already. It will be one of those stories that they will remember for the rest of their lives. I felt bad about the girl crying and later when I saw her I patted her on the back and said it was okay but I could tell she had been crying. Other than that, everything went great. The slideshow photo montage I made for the wedding went perfect. I'm not sure if this is a sign of trust or if it simply shows how little time Andy and Lea had before the wedding, but apparently during the ceremony was the first time they had seen the slideshow. I snuck a few pictures of Andy that I had lying around on the hard drive and everyone seemed to enjoy them. I was careful not to pick a bunch of pictures of just he and I together; I threw in one of Matt and Andy from Alison's wedding, one of Matt, Andy, Kenny and myself from Andy's bachelor party, and a few others. The cool thing about the slideshow software I'm now using is that the final product is on a DVD, so Andy and Lea can watch it in their home any time they want. Saturday Evening / The Reception So after the wedding was over we took a few more pictures and then I had to hightail it to the reception hall to get the music started. Matt's father-in-law generously brought a CD of instrumental/piano pop songs, which I had softly playing in the background. My buddy Jeff was at the reception and he came over to the DJ booth to check out the setup. It was great to have somebody, anybody, standing next to me as I felt all eyes were on me. Now neither Andy nor Lea nor myself have ever planned a wedding reception, so everything we scheduled was based off of plans we found on the Internet combined with Andy and Lea's wishes. We came up with a loose schedule and so with my mic I could control the timing of the events. Pretty early in the reception the professional photographer (who was very nice) came and asked me what time things were happening and when I began telling her times she made a funny face and I immediately realized we hadn't done things right. For example we had a 2 hour block of dancing before the garter removal and bouquet toss -- the photographer said, "everyone will be gone." With her advice I quickly rescheduled about half of the day's events. Then she asked when it was going to be over and I said 7:30pm. She said they wouldn't be there that long so she wanted to fake the bride and groom leaving, take pictures of that, and then have them re-enter. So now I'm panicing because here I have every minute of the evening written out in black Sharpie already and now we're going to "wing it". YIKES. Apparently during all of the excitement I forgot that I hate talking on a microphone. So for the first few announcements, I did what any man would do -- I made my wife do it. I was like, "do I say 'ladies and gentlemen' or 'attention party guests' or ..." at which point Susan grabbed the mic and made announcements like the pro she is. I felt like a pansy but what can you do. Another lovely problem was that I didn't have the phantom power turned on on my mixing board, which meant I had to turn the volume way up on the mix which occasionally caused it to SCREECH and SQUEAL loudly. It only happened two or three times but that was enough to be quite embarassing, let me tell you. Eventually I got through the awkwardness of the first few announcements: the the cutting of the cake, bride and groom's first dance, the bride and the father of the bride dance, the groom and his mother dance ... there were a lot of special dances! Then we faked the exit, then they re-entered, then we started the dancing. Now as I said before, I had tens of thousands of songs on my laptop for this event. If it was remotely popular over the past 50 years, I probably had it. So the first request I get is, "that one song from Ladder 49." I'm like, "what song?" Mike D. says, "you know, that song called 'Fire'". I'm like, the one that goes, "Fiiiiiiiiire?" He says, "no, that's Elmer Fudd." So then I said, "well who sings it?" He says he has no idea, but he'll find out. So while Mike D. is off finding out who (other than Elmer Fudd) sings "Fire," I discover that the library (within the community center) has free and open wi-fi access. I connect, using my laptop. Mike D. comes back and tells me it's by the Ohio Players. Now, get this -- while the music's playing, I connect to my home machine, search for the song, find it, download it, copy it from my house to my laptop there at the reception, and play it. Talk about a high-tech DJ -- let's see Casey Kasum pull that off! Once the music got started, I think everybody forgot about what a terrible speaker I am and began enjoying the afternoon. I front loaded the playlist with lots of 60's and country stuff. Being a DJ gives you a sense of power, when you can play a particular song and get people up out of their chairs. It's almost a game to see how many dance songs you can link together -- Cotton Eyed Joe, followed by T-R-O-U-B-L-E, followed by Play that Funky Music White Boy ... I checked with the bride and groom as well as other people at the party, confirming playlists and song choices and sound levels and whatnot. From the feedback I got, I think everybody enjoyed themselves. I know a professional DJ could have done the job better but he would not have done it free-er. I hope Andy and Lea weren't embarassed by any of the music or anything and feel like they got (at least) their money's worth. Not every song went well. Matt requested "Come on Eileen" (the greatest party song of all time, he claims) and not only did people leave the dance floor but some people actually left the room and I got several "thumbs down" from people. But more often than not people seemed to enjoy the tunes. I discovered that 12-year-old kids enjoy making requests but most of them I could not fill -- not because I didn't have the music (hello, it's ME!) but because I didn't know if they would be appropriate wedding party songs or not (anything from Fergie is suspect). One of the kids asked for Thriller so I went with that, which both the kids and adults enjoyed. At some point everybody involved realized that the party would not go the full four hours, as most everyone over 40 (except relatives) began trickling out. Andy called for the limo to come an hour early, but apparently they either didn't get the call or couldn't get there on time because they were almost half an hour late. By then so many had left that Andy and Lea didn't feel a need to do the "last dance," so instead we jumped to the last song, Elvis' "A Little Less Conversation." People danced, people hugged, people parted. I was the very last person to leave the reception center. It took me quite a while to pack up. The only sign that a huge party had taken place were several stuffed trash cans and a lone piece of broccoli sitting on the floor. I flipping the lights off, shut the door, and headed home. Congratulations Andy and Lea. I love you guys.

I have the same conversation with my son every time we pass one of those electronic crane machines.

One of my dad's favorite jokes comes from a scene in Steve Martin's The Jerk. In the scene, Navin R. Johnson (Martin) has taken a job as a midway carnie. After someone wins the game he is tending, he begins to explain what prizes they can choose from. "Anything below this shelf, but above this shelf. Anything between here, and here," he says, while gesturing to the smallest item on the shelf. "Anything left of here, but right of here, right in this general area," he says, again gesturing to the smallest item on the shelf. Eventually his hands form a square about the size of a postage stamp. "Anything in this area right here," he says. My dad and I recycle this joke anytime someone offers us a choice of something and then immediately follows it by a limitation in choices. For example, one time we went to Braums to get some ice cream. "I'll take some chocolate," I said. "We're all out of chocolate." Then I picked cookies and cream. "We're all out of cookies and cream," the lady replied. Then, the joke comes out. "So, you can have any flavor of ice cream as long as it's below this line, in this general area ..." In today's mailbox I got a free $10 gift card for Best Buy. In the sorta-fine print, the card says that it's valid with any $100 purchase. In the regular fine print, it reads: "Qualifying purchases exclude contract cellular phones and cellular phone contracts, notebooks and desktop computers, monitors, projectors, internal hard drives, desktop packages (packages include computer, monitor and printer), In Home Geek Squad Services, VIOP, Broadband, HP ink and paper, video game hardware, Apple products, Bose products, JBL and Shure MP3 player accessories, Zune players, satellite radio service, digital music services and download cards, Gift Cards, taxes, prior purchases, special order, clearance, demo and open-box items." In other words, the gift card is good for purchases "below this shelf, to the right of this area, in this general area ..."

As the days to Andy's wedding draw close, I have been spending a lot of time sorting through my music collection, picking just the right songs to play at the wedding reception. This process is two-fold; not only must good songs be included, but bad ones must be excluded. Good songs are defined as songs that people know, like, and would want to dance to. Additionally, good songs should elicit some sort of emotional response. Bad songs are generally defined as ones people don't know, are annoying, overplayed, or are difficult to dance to. There is one additional category of bad songs, and those are songs that are inappropriate for a wedding. With each song I include or exclude, I ask myself, "what does this say about the wedding?" So far Poison is winning the inappropriate song list, as I've deleted four of their songs from the queue: Fallen Angel, Look What the Cat Dragged In, Nothin' But a Good Time and Talk Dirty to Me. Van Halen is in a close second with three songs: Ain't Talkin' Bout Love, Hot for Teacher, and Running With the Devil. Here are the songs I've pulled out of the playlist so far. See if you can come up with any other songs that shouldn't be played at a wedding. (No fair picking non-radio friendly songs: I could easily list every Cannibal Corpse song here, but that would be cheating.) ACDC - You Shook Me All Night Long Aerosmith - Love In An Elevator Atlantic Star - Secret Lovers Billy Idol - White Wedding - Parts I & II (Shot Gun Mix) Billy Squier - My Kinda Lover Billy Squier - The Stroke Bulletboys - Smooth Up In Ya Chicago - If She Would Have Been Faithful... David Lee Roth - Just a Gigolo & I Ain't Got Nobody Elton John - The Bitch Is Back Foreigner - Feels Like the First Time George Michael - I Want Your Sex Greg Kihn Band - (Our Love's in) Jeopardy Heart - All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You J.Geils Band - Centerfold Jody Watley - Looking For A New Love Karyn White - Secret Rendezvous Madonna - Like A Virgin Olivia Newton John - Physical Pat Benatar - Love is a Battlefield Paula Abdul - Cold Hearted Poison - Fallen Angel Poison - Look What The Cat Dragged In Poison - Nothin' But A Good Time Poison - Talk Dirty To Me Ready for the World - Oh Sheila Samantha Fox - I Wanna Have Some Fun Samantha Fox - Touch Me (I Want Your Body) Sly Fox - Let's Go All The Way The Police - Don't Stand So Close To Me Thompson Twins - Lies Tina Turner - Private Dancer U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday Van Halen - Ain't Talkin' Bout Love Van Halen - Hot for Teacher Van Halen - Running With The Devil Vanity 6 - Nasty Girl Waitresses - I Know What Boys Like Warrant - Cherry Pie

The funny thing is, out of my entire circle of friends, I would say that I'm the luckiest. Somehow he borrowed my luck. I hope I get it back!

Saturday night, Andy and I cruised over to Buffalo Wild Wings to eat some wings, drink some beer, and watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship Pay Per View for free. Watching fights like these are completely different when you're in a public venue. Buffalo Wild Wings was jam packed with excitement and testosterone. Despite the 30-minute wait outside the restaurant to get a table, we had a blast watching all six fights, which were being broadcast on over a dozen televisions and three giant projectors. We hung out at the restaurant for almost four hours and had a great time. After the fights were over we decided to check out the casino over at Remington Park. I'd never been there before, but Andy had. Andy's slot machine of choice, "99 Bottles of Beer," ended up paying him $175 worth of nickels. Not content to walk away with that, he and I split his winnings (I had already lost everything I brought) and took our money to the High Roller room. Andy pumped his money into a slot machine that cost $5 per line, up to 13 lines. Before we could do the math, Andy bet the max ($65) and ended up hitting a bonus game that ended up paying him $695. Including the $5 he had left over from before, Andy walked away with a cool $700.

On June 2nd, my life-long buddy Andy will be getting married to his sweet soulmate Lea. On that special day I get to wear two completely different hats: during the ceremony I'll be serving as a groomsman, while later at the reception party I'll be the DJ. One thing I can guarantee you is that between those two roles I will be definitely be changing clothes. Over the past week or so I've begun collecting and compiling the music which will be played during the reception. If you think I take an event such as this one lightly, think again. For starters, I've downloaded somewhere around 9,000 songs over the past 48 hours. At 4 minutes per song that's 36,000 minutes/600 hours/25 DAYS worth of music. From those I'll be picking the best of the best, listening to each one that I select (to make sure it's not screwed up or mislabeled) and then placing them in a queue. These songs are in addition to the ones I already have in my personal collection -- all my old 80's, party, and dance CDs that I've ripped to MP3 over the years. I've also been searching the web for lists of "popular wedding reception songs", ensuring that I have all of those songs on hand as well. While mathematically the vast majority of the songs I have pulled pull will not make it into the four-hour long playlist, I will have all of them with me just in case someone requests one of them. Andy and Lea like 80's music, dance music, and country music, so I am creating a playlist that contains an equal number of songs from all three of these genres, but with extra songs on hand I can change the playlist on the fly (thanks to the software I'm using) depending on the mood of the crowd and the party. I've only DJed one other event -- my sister's wedding reception. Linda gave me very loose guidelines in which to operate. If I remember correctly, her exact words were she wanted her reception to sound like a "rollerskating rink from the 1980s." Before the party I loaded my laptop with thousands of Awesome 80's classics, and (I think) the crowd had a good time listening to them. The only negative moment was when my aunt came over and requested "a country line dancing song." When I told her I didn't have any, she said, "how can you call yourself a DJ and not have any line dancing songs?" At the time I thought to myself, well, I guess it's because they didn't do a lot of line dancing in rollerskating rinks in the 1980s. But looking back at the situation, I think she was right -- and I won't be caught off guard again. For example, the day before yesterday I downloaded the top 100 line dancing songs of all time. Overkill? Hah! It's my middle name. But if someone comes up to me next weekend and asks to hear a line dancing song, I'll be prepared. I didn't like that feeling of being caught off guard, and it won't happen again. Yesterday I got to visit the reception hall with Andy and take a look at where I would be setting up shop. I am really bad at mentally visualizing things. Even while standing in the room it was hard for me to see where things were going to be placed, how the tables were going to be laid out, and so on. I am sure everything will be fine. So do I worry about things? Yes I do. I worry about my computer crashing during the party. I worry about playing a song that might offend someone. I worry about my hard drive crashing. I worry about lots of things that I have no control over. My goal for the next week and a half is to prepare, check, and double check all the things I DO have control over, and go from there. I have two more wedding-related posts coming up within the next day or two, covering DJ Software and inappropriate wedding songs. Also, I should clarify one thing -- I do not consider myself a DJ. I think real DJs, the turntablists that do real time beat mixing and stuff like that, are incredibly gifted and talented. I've been trying to come up with a word to describe the service I am providing -- the new term seems to be "eJay", although in the car yesterday I coined "mp3jay" which I also like. Regardless of the term you use, I have no misgivings that I have any talent whatsoever in the "music presentation industy" -- I'm just a guy with a laptop, a bunch of cords, and a ton of music. Rawk on.

Second language or not, I would think (or hope) college graduates should be able to write a complete sentence.

I was skimming through online ads last night looking at cars when I ran across this one, posted by a fellow named George: I am an OU student. I sell this car because I am graduating and relocating next week. This car is very well maintained and with good condition. Engine is very quite and sound system is excellent. Drive very smoothly. One tire was changed recently. Luxury equipment including leather, compass, cruise, compass. Please contact George via 405-xxx-xxxx to arrange a watch. Thanks. OU must be so proud. My guess? Journalism major.

Our Saturday began around 5am when the kids decided to get up. The Community Center was hosting a "kids only" garage sale today, and Mason decided he wanted to have one. Unfortunately he didn't decide to help much in the preparation of said sale -- that was left to mommy. Around 7am, Susan and Mason left the house, headed for the garage sale. Morgan came and sat down in our bed. I gave her the television remote, which she enjoyed pressing random buttons on for a few minutes. Part of the reason Morgan and I stayed home was because I had a couple of guys coming from Tulsa to pick up an arcade game I sold. The garage sale was from 8am - Noon; the guys were set to arrive between 11 and 11:30. Around 8am I got Morgan dressed and the two of us went up to the garage sale. I noticed something stuck to Morgan's toe when I was putting on her socks, so I pulled it off. It was skin from a toe injury. Despite her limited linguistic skills, she conveyed her displeasure with me very clearly. The garage sale appeared to be little more than people trading junk. Each time I saw Mason sell something he immediately took the money to another table and bought something with it. The fifty cents he earned from a book went right back into a Power Rangers costume. (The costume was at least two sizes too small; by the time we left, Mason had split the butt and the arms out.) Morgan had a good time running around the gym unrestrained. Susan ran the table; I yearned for coffee. Right before we left, Morgan tripped and ran flat on her face. She cried and I picked her up and carried her to the car. By the time we got outside Susan noticed Morgan's bloody nose. So far today she was 0 for 2. On the way back to the house I got a phone call from the Tulsa guys; they weren't coming. With that time slot freed up, we decided to go eat lunch. It's always a crap shoot when going out for lunch before nap time. Sometimes you win, sometimes the kids have loud public meltdowns. Today, the kids won. By the time our lunches arrived at Alfredos, Mason was crying because his Diet Coke wasn't a lemonaide and because we weren't at Taco Bueno. Morgan smeared beans on the table and used a single chip to empty four ounces of cheese out of a bowl and on to a plate. I shoveled food into my mouth like mad as Susan tried to control the chaos. You know it's one of those days when you ask for a to go box even before your food arrives. After lunch it was nap time for everybody. We got home around 12:30 and needed to squeeze naps in before our 2pm birthday party. After getting the kids down, Susan and I laid down as well. Susan woke me up at 2:10pm -- we're late! The next fifteen minutes were a mad blur of waking up kids, getting them dressed, and driving to the birthday party. We arrived around 2:45pm. As I announced at the party, we skipped "fashionably late" and opted for simply "late." The party (Matt Willrath's daughter's 2nd birthday) was fun for everyone. After an hour or so at the party we headed back home. Susan cleaned the living room a bit while I kept the kids preoccupied upstairs, watching cartoons. The distraction was temporary; soon they were downstairs, undoing all Susan had done. Never ending cycle, cleaning is. The rest of the afternoon went by quickly. Before long it was dinner time, and not long after that Morgan was ready for bed. I went over to Stephen's to watch boxing, while Sue and Mason stayed home. I hope tomorrow is calmer.

As most of you are aware, Susan had lapband surgery about a month ago. Before deciding to have the surgery, Susan meticulously researched all the effects the surgery would have on her. We both knew that lapband surgery would be a drastic change for her. What I’m not sure either of us realized is how much of an impact her surgery would have on ME. When you first have lapband surgery, your stomach is reduced to about one cup in size (8 oz) – later, the band is constricted down to hold about half a cup (4 oz). If you need a visual aid, those small paper cone cups that sit next to water bottles are about 4 ounces. With a stomach that size, eating loses its fun. It’s no longer enjoyable to linger around a Mexican restaurant for an hour, snacking on chips and cheese (the cup of cheese they bring to your table is about four ounces – eat that and you’re done) waiting for your meal and the eventual sopapillas to arrive. When you can only eat a cup of food, every bite counts. Over the last month we’ve all but stopped eating out. We used to hit restaurants or buffets on the way home on a regular basis; now, it’s a rarity for sure. Buffets are pretty much completely off her list now. I can think of five or six Chinese buffets within just a few miles of work that Susan and I used to frequent on a regular basis. No more. Last Saturday I called my dad and made him go eat Chinese food with me for lunch because I was craving it so bad. Stupid MSG. And it’s not just Chinese food. Susan and I used to love going to Hometown Buffet, Golden Corral, and Fire Mountain, not because we necessarily enjoy getting stuffed at every meal but more because you can get a fun variety of salads, fruits, vegetables and meat all at one place. Those days seem to be over as well. We’re not going to pay $8 so Susan can have a cup of soup. Eating in front of someone who cannot eat can also have a weird mental effect on you as well. The other night, Susan made one of my favorite dishes, a bowl of Chinese stir-fry and rice. As I’m stuffing my face, I look over to Sue who is eating a tiny smidgen of food. I started eating before her, and continued eating long after she was done. After a few minutes I started thinking about what a pig I must look like to someone who can eat so little. At least twice now I have stopped eating because I felt bad eating in front of Susan, only to resume later once she was out of the room or had gone to bed. This is not a healthy habit to start. Although it’s not intentional or planned, it feels like I am “hiding” eating and that can’t be a good sign. I think overall the changes Susan has made and the effect they have had on me are a good thing. We are still trying to figure out how all of this will play out. I have no idea how the big holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas, which revolve around our families getting together and eating non-stop for days) will play out. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

This evening, I began a project I’ve been putting off for at least a couple of years now – converting all of my CDs to MP3s. At last count I had close to 1,200 music CDs. At approximately 5 minutes per conversion, that’s 100 hours of work ahead of me. Of course there’s very little manual labor involved in converting them; you simply insert a CD, click a button, wait five minutes, and remove the CD when the conversion is complete. Still, I’ve got to sit close by the computer to click buttons and swap CDs in and out of the drive. Perhaps I should say I have 100 hours of waiting (instead of work) ahead of me instead. So, why am I converting all my music to MP3s? After doing a bit of soul searching I’ve realized I listen to music in four places: my house, my desk at work, while walking, and in my car. At home, work, and while walking, I listen to MP3s either on a computer or my MP3 player. In my car, I listen to the radio. The only time I listen to actual audio CDs is during road trips. I suppose on future road trips, I’ll have to figure something else out. There are, of course, many advantages to converting one’s music collection to a digital format. Currently, my CD collection fills up a set of shelves eight foot wide, four foot high. If I did the math right, all 1,200 albums should take up somewhere around 100 gig of drive space – that’s twenty-five blank DVDs, or just one moderately sized hard drive. My old music collection becomes instantly portable. When I’m done, the next question becomes, what will I do with 1,200 CDs? I may sell them, although I’m not sure what the used CD market is these days. I could probably get a buck or two out of most of them. I’m not sure selling them one at a time on eBay would be financially viable. For the time being, I’m boxing them up to store out in the garage (of course) until I decide what exactly to do with them.

I know of one that's full of old BBS stories ...

At precisely 11:30pm, I round the final corner heading back home. With each passing step a bit more water seeps into my tennis shoes. Rain drips from the brim of my hat, running down onto my face. The cold rainwater running down my back makes me wonder if an iPod carries enough juice to electrocute me. May 1st we began our second yearly work diet contest. Instead of putting in a hundred bucks all at once like we did for last year’s three-month contest, this time we’re doing $20 monthly buy-ins. That should keep any participants from going broke over an otherwise positive contest. Like last year, I have mixed feelings about these contests. The humanitarian in me hopes that everybody does well for their own health, as these are my friends. The competitor in me hopes they all go home and eat a dozen chocolate doughnuts. I don’t have any master plan this time around. I just plan on walking a bit more and eating a bit less. As the winner of last year’s contest, I’m the guy everybody’s gunning for this time around. The humanitarian in me sees this as a good thing – I hope everybody does really well for their own sake. The competitor in me is too busy to wish everybody good luck – he’ll be out walking, rain or shine.

It’s 4:53 AM, according to my truck’s radio. I remember falling asleep in the driver’s seat; my tailbone still aches. Now I find myself in the back seat, using a combination of kid toys and coats for a pillow. The imprint of a seatbelt digs deep into my side. The high-pitched buzz of mosquitoes circling around my head makes it tough to fall back asleep. I dig around in the floorboard and find one of Mason’s windbreakers, which I use to cover my head and drown out the noise of mosquitoes and rain. As I close my eyes once again, I go back over the day’s events, tracing the path that led me to this point. Saturday, at 8AM, I picked Jeff up at his house. From there, the two of us met up with Scott at the Waffle House. We’re there to have breakfast before hooking up with the rest of the convoy, heading out to Andy’s bachelor party which is taking place at his parents lake lot down at Fort Cobb. Despite the fact that I’m on a fairly strict diet for a weight loss contest at work, I already knew all bets would be off this weekend, and I got the anti-diet started early with an omelet, bacon and sausage. At the Waffle House we may have met the world’s worst waitress; she wasn’t rude, but painfully dumb. Her parting comment to us was, “I hope your change is right, or close. I’m not so good with math.” After meeting up with the other guys at Andy’s brother’s house, we began the drive to Fort Cobb, about an hour southwest of Mustang. Upon arrival we unloaded all the food, snacks and beer into the cabin. After hanging out there for an hour or two, we headed down to the lake for several hours of drinking, fishing, and hanging out. All the fishermen complained about the weather (windy and overcast) but it felt perfect. There were enough lawn chairs and ice chests for everyone to have a seat. I didn’t bring a fishing pole but Jeff brought his son’s Rocket Fishing Rod for me to use. After several hours of fishing hunger began to set in, so a few of us went back to the cabin to get the grill and loaded it into the back of someone’s pickup. Back lakeside, we had a literal tailgate cookout. After chowing down on burgers, brats and hot dogs (but no fish) we headed back to the cabin, where after a bit of down time the night’s poker tournament was organized. With eleven people playing we decided to have two tables going at once. By this time all of us had been drinking heavily, some of us more heavily than others. Not that there was anyone sober at this point in the game, but the “less drunk” people obviously had an advantage over the “more drunk” people. I’m not saying which group I was a member of, but the last hand I played I anted a chocolate doughnut, went all in on hopes of flopping a pair of fours, and fell out of my chair at least twice. Eventually the losers migrated to the living room where we played a few hands for fun. At some point the room began to spin so I went outside to get a bit of fresh air. The next thing you know, it’s 4:53 AM, and I’m sleeping in my truck. Around 8 AM Sunday, Jeff, Andy and I (all of us with pounding headaches) picked up the cabin a bit while everyone else slept before beginning the very long drive home. The ride was mostly quiet, save for the wind blowing in through the cracked windows. After dropping Andy and Jeff off at their respective destinations, I went home, crawled into bed, and slept another five or six hours. Here’s to ya, Andy. If the success of your wedding is decided by the amount of fun we had this weekend, you guys should stay happily married for about 370 years.

I'd say my experience was much the same. I knew all the older songs and didn't know anything past the mid 80's. According to the web, here's the set list for their 2007 shows. This sounds pretty accurate from what I remember: Don't Let Him Go Music Man Take It on the Run Keep Pushin' Needed to Fall Tough Guys Dangerous Combination Can't Fight This Feelin Smilin' in the End Time For Me To Fly Back On the Road Again Keep On Lovin' You Roll With the Changes Encore: Ridin' the Storm Out They've released four or five studio albums since the mid 80's and an astounding *20* compilation, greatest hits and live albums since about '82. Milkin' the storm out ...

How many times have you uttered the phrase, “Not even if you paid me”? Earlier this week my friend Stephen asked me if I would be interested in going to see REO Speedwagon in concert. My initial response was, “Not even if you paid me.” But I guess in the end that was a lie, because I both went and got paid. At Riverwind Casino, with each concert ticket purchased, players get a $10 credit applied to their gamer’s card. Friday night at Riverwind also happens to be “Men’s Night,” where all men with cards also get $10 credit. Stephen’s sister paid for her own ticket but couldn’t go, so I ended up getting her ticket for free. So when the deal becomes, “will you go see REO Speedwagon for free and get paid $20,” the answer is yes. REO Speedwagon played all their hits from the 70’s and 80’s, along with several songs from their new album that was released last week. The band was tight, and the show was surprisingly enjoyable. And, with the $20 free credit that I was given, I won $200 in a slot machine. I got paid to see REO Speedwagon, big time. If any other bands would like to pay me to come see them, consider this an open offer.