Happy Birthday!!

So it is both my friend Andy and Alanna's birthday today, so I am showing them some Blog love.

I've known Alanna since 7th grade, when she came to Wittenberg Middle School. Though High School is where we really became good friends. I remember many nights during the summer laying on her trampoline with friends, and talking the night away. I am not sure if the statute of limitations has run out, so I will be vague, but a few nights involved dark clothes, late nights, and lawn ornaments. Although I think it all started with a shopping cart. Anyway, Alanna is a great person and a better friend. Happy Birthday Alanna.

I've known Andy for quite some time, he has been one of my best friends. Out of all of my friends he has probably been present at a majority of my Perkins Coffee fueled rants. In High School Perkins was often a late night meal spot, and I had a penchant for drinking coffee with about 15 packets of sugar. Often on the ride home, I would end up ranting on about something while Andy had to take it all in. He often tried to kill me with his snowmobile, as he pulled me behind it on a tube. He helped me get my first job, as a maintenance technician at Wilderness Crossing. From what I remember he was present the first time I got drunk.

Some of my favorite times in High School were Cross Country meets. There was a great group of seniors, and not only were we a fairly successful team, but we had a lot of fun as well. One of those was when he instigated the toilet papering of our CC coaches house. Which was the only time I went toilet papering.

Overall Andy and I have been through a lot, I am happy that he has put up with me all these years, and allowed me to call him a friend.

Happy Birthday Andy!

Winter Parking

Why can't people park in actual parking spots during the winter. Two days in a row now while trying to find a spot before work, I have been nice, and let another car park first. Both times, there was clearly enough space for two cars. Both times the car I let go first, parked so they took up both spots.

As I drove around the parking lot after being slighted, I noticed that the parking lot had the potential for at least 5 more spots, had people not parked like crazy people.

I've also noticed this phenomenon in store parking lots, when you drive down the row, and have to weave in and out of cars. I'm not sure why winter makes people incompetent parkers, but it does.

One more reason to BOO winter.

A bit of bragging

I am sure now that I type it out, things will change in the next 5 months, but as it stands today, I will be getting a 4th floor (which means top floor) corner office when we move into our new building in June/July.

I am not one to brag much, especially out in the open, in an economic time when lot's of people would be happy to have a desk to work at let alone an office. So to all of those people. I am sorry.

It is not going to be a huge office either. Enough for my desk, and a small table for a couple of people to sit around. It is also in the south east corner, so I will probably have a glare on my computer monitors.

The cool part though is that there are not any other offices around mine. Most of the offices are in groups of two to four. Mine is all alone in the corner.

Anyway that's enough bragging for me. Let's just hope things don't change.

Where everybody knows your name....

One of my favorite things is when a random event sparks a memory. Recently while watching a commercial for the final season of Cheers on DVD, I remembered a video I made for my 6th (maybe seventh) grade reading class.

The assignment was that the class had to split into groups and make a TV show. My group did an episode of Cheers. Thinking about it, I find it odd that a middle school allowed us to do a TV show where basically all of the action takes place in a bar. Those sure were different times.

The basic plot of our show was that Norm "dies" I can't remember if he chokes on a peanut, or has a heart attack, but essentially he dies. He then goes to heaven and hell, before being awaken by having a glass of beer thrown on him. I believe the then has a line about wasting a good beer.

Thinking about it we did a lot of cool things in that class. I remember creating a restaurant theme, layout, and menu, and then bringing in an item from the menu for the class to try.

Good times.

Unicorn Shirts and other things.

Why have a never seen a manly Unicorn shirt, and for that matter why aren't unicorns manly. I mean come on, you take a horse, and add a weapon to it's head. What's not manly about that?

So, since most of you that read this are bloggers yourselves, I am going to take a minute and tell you to set up google analytics for your blog if you have not already. This nifty tool, gives you a ton of demographic info on your blog. It will show you how many people have visited the site, and where they are from. Someone in Chile has read my blog. Not sure why, but it is awesome that they did. If you are reading this, my visitor from Chile, leave a comment and let us know who you are. I know that someone searched for, president cleveland panda, in google and ended up at my blog.

I had to rake the snow off of my roof today, which sucks. Since I think that the weight of the snow was about to crush my house I think that it was a good idea.

14......FOURTEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is what I thought after hearing this morning that the octuplet lady already has six kids all under the age of 7. Which means she now has 14 kids all under the age of seven, and a husband headed back to Iraq as a contractor. So she is outnumbered 14 to 1 at home.

This situation keeps blowing my mind thinking about the logistics of raising this many kids. Feeding, clothing, bathing, etc. etc., one kid can be a crazy endevor, and this lady has to do this with 14.

I know that a lot of people have been giving this lady a hard time for going through the fertility procedures, when she already had 6 kids, and the doctors for implanting eight embryos. I say good on her. She is one brave woman.

Lot's of stuff

So I have lots of things going on, so I thought I would toss up in this blog.

Item 1

I am getting closer to crossing #18 off of the list. With the wonder that is the interwebs, I have been brought back in touch with Erik, a friend from High School. We spent many a night in the auditorium running lines, and building sets. He has taken his abilities to the next level, and is on his way to fame an fortune. I am fortunate enough to be able to work on a project with him. He read one of my movie pitch blogs, and are working on bringing it to the screen. It will be a short, that is shot this summer. I did the first draft, and he took it and turned it into a movie. I am working on third draft edits, and then we will let the rest of the team he has set up to work on the film take a look at it. I am really excited to see an idea that I had worked on by a group of professionals and turned into a movie. Once we start shooting, I will feel comfortable crossing it off my list.

Item 2

I am sick of the cold, so we have booked a trip to San Antonio. I had a free ticket and we needed to use it soon, so we picked a weekend and are taking a long weekend in Alamo City. I plan on re-enacting the battle of the Alamo with Jeff Olson, while our wives pretend they don't know us. I also plan on tubing down the Riverwalk, lazy river style. I also hear that our Hotel is potentially haunted so I will bring my Ouija board along with me.

Item 3

My wife is awesome. Tonight we had the Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet. Since I am still trying to figure out what I am supposed to do as Cub Master at these things, I stressed out over the meeting. She kept telling me it would be OK, and spent most of the meeting setting up food, serving food, cleaning up the food, etc., etc. Pretty much being an all around awesome wife. So thanks Hun.

Item 4

My son is hilarious I wanted to share this from a paper he wrote in school. The set up is that he is supposed to write a letter to President Obama with things that he hopes Obama will do for our country. My son wrote. (letter is edited for spelling)

Please upgrade our schools and make more fuel efficient cars, and make it so everyone can see Russia from their house.

That's right. My son took the Scholastic News letter to the President, and used it as a chance to take a shot at Sarah Palin. It warms my heart just a little.