That's Right, Cuz It's My Birthday, My Buh-Buh-Buh Birthday

On this night 32 years ago, I made the trip through the hoo-ha and graced this world with my presence. Today is/was my birthday and it was pretty freakin sweet. The day started off when Kristen walked into the guest room to wake me up. I slept in there last night because Jeffrey keeps wetting the damn bed and I don't like waking up to wet feet. So I kicked OD out of his bed and slept there instead. He was relegated to the love seat. Kristen made me bacon and biscuits which rocked my world. Normally I eat like a banana or something so this was completely and totally sweet. So I'm totally full but its cool because its my freaking birthday. Also, my birthday falls on Veteran's Day. You know what that means? Hell yes, no traffic on the commute. Rock on to federal employees for being off work.

So I drove into work in record time which is always most excellent. I walked into the office and what doth appear before my eyes in front of my office door? A bunch of freaking sweet balloons. One of which happened to be in the shape of a dinosaur. Seriously, who doesn't like dinosaurs? Well color me excited because we named him Rufus and he became my own personal secretary for the day. Chrisgina (from the last blog) got me the balloons and then she also got me a dozen donuts. I love donuts. I especially love donuts when the only reason I get them is because I turn 32. Could this day get any better? OF COURSE IT COULD. At approximately 8:35, one of my student workers who we'll call Cake walked in with a gigantic basket of absolute garbage. We had brownies and chocolate covered pretzels, and chocolate chip cookies, and M&M's. My lovely wife sent that along. EPIC. What else could possibly go right? I know, one of our senior fellows, Writtainy, brought me a Diet Coke and a king sized Twix bar. Sweet Jesus this is going to be a heck of a day.

I must point out that I found it necessary to have a South Park soundboard on my computer screen at all times so that I could immediately pull the following out whenever I told someone to do something and they asked me why they should: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25HYETWejlI I'm immature and a child of the 90's so just roll with it and love me for who I am.

At lunch, me and another friend who I'll call Mohendra, met for pizza at Andolinni's down the street from our office. She got me a fun writing utensil for my office which was awesome. More importantly, she got me two king sized Reese's Peanut Butter Cup candy bars. I had eight peanut butter cups to work with here. Let's recap my food intake to this point shall we? Two bacon biscuits, a donut and a half, four twix bars, a gigantor slice of pizza and a crap load of Reese's. I haven't had this much sugar since 1992. I didn't have the wherewithal to open the candy basket at this point. What did I have? The energy and mental capacity of one Cornholio from the old Beavis and Butthead days. So of course I found a Cornholio soundboard full of his quotable quotes and played them on full blast. I need tp for MY bunghole mother effer.

I came back from lunch to find my office completely decorated with Happy Birthday signs and ribbons and such. Apparently Rufus participated in my sugar coma and passed out on guard duty. It turns out that someone we'll name Lara was the culprit in this one. She came and admitted as much to me later. I thought it was fun and games until she asked to borrow a red Sharpie and then pretended to color in my bald spot while I was sitting at my computer. Well played Lara, well played.

So we get towards the end of the day and all I want to do is go out for a couple of drinks before I meet Kristen and some friends for dinner. Everyone sold me down the river except for the new Chris Noland drinking buddy core. Me, Chrisgina, Feather and Yimmy headed to Kingstreet Grill for beers. Yimmy and I had Guinness because we are manly men. Chrisgina had some bottle whose name I forget but I'm pretty sure she took a swing at my head with it at some point. Feather drank wine. Feather was lame (that's actually a lie, she's more or less one of the coolest people I know).

We had a great time until I realized that surely I would have heard from Kristen since it was after 6:30pm. I had no service on my phone so I went outside and rebooted the old Iphone. It came back up with six text messages, three voicemails and (I'm not kidding) 48 emails. AT&T really sucks out here in the holy city. Kristen was on her way and we were meeting friends at the Blind Tiger. I asked Feather if I could walk there or if I should drive since she was a bit more acquainted with the city. Feather said it would be no problem for me to walk. Feather was wrong. I was expecting to walk a couple of blocks. Turns out it was two miles (in drinking terms but in actuality about a quarter of a mile but whatever). I started booking it.

Kristen and I met up with our friends Maggie and Richard for dinner and drinks. I haven't seen Richard in a couple of months because he's trying to be all corporate and get an MBA. I was shocked because he's gone through a transformation in the last two months and somehow now looks exactly like Josh Groban. He should probably be on Glee. We had a blast at dinner and I'm glad we got to hang out with them. I was somewhat shmammered so I picked up the tab on my own birthday. It's how I roll which basically is another word for awesome (and by word I mean phrase or something). Richard and I agreed that it was time for another man date. We haven't had one since we went and saw The Expendables. I think we've cooled off enough since then to have another one. Maybe we'll drink a bunch of beer at his house and watch a MacGruber marathon. MACGRUBER!!!

After dinner, I walked Kristen back to her car because I'm chivalrous and it was on the way to mine. We drove back to our humble abode. The most important part of the day had yet to come. I HAD TO KNOW, how many people had wished me happy birthday on Facebook. I was overwhelmed at how many of my friends and pseudo friends thought of me when they saw my name pop up on their daily Facebook birthday list. Thanks guys. It actually was really cool to see and Deanne Arnold even said she wished I'd write these blogs more often. Hopefully I can handle up on that because these are so much fun to write, even if I don't edit nearly enough.

Alright, OD is back in his bed and Jeffrey has already been out to pee so let's keep our fingers crossed for tonight (I also have mention that just as I type this, OD just let a huge one rip and it is freaking foul). This was a great birthday start to finish. Look out for next year because it will be 11-11-11 and I'll be 33. Watch out world.

Socially Networked

My bad. I probably had it coming. The running joke at the office is that I watch Glee. I play it off and tell everyone that I watch it with Kristen so that I'm allowed to watch football on Saturdays (turns out that's crap by the way). The little joke was also fairly contained to the people that work in my office. Unfortunately (for me), some of the people in my office include student workers, grad assistants, and recent graduates. What do all of these people have in common? Facebook.

I admit it, I joined Facebook in 2005 or so while I was working at Louisiana Tech. At the time, it was still relatively new and you had to have a college email address to secure an account. For the most part, it was a tool for me to keep in touch with student recruiters and members of our staff. Along the way, it started getting bigger and more complex and I started getting in touch with old classmates and fraternity brothers and such. And then all hell broke loose. Facebook exploded. All of the sudden, I'm getting friend requests from random people I might have said hey to passing them on the street. Regardless of the fact that I don't know them, they wanted to be friends with me. After all, everyone knows that the more Facebook friends you have, the higher your social status. That sounds benign enough until some of these people that I didn't know started getting pregnant. Why do some girls find it completely appropriate to describe bodily fluids and functions on a WALL that everyone can see, even people they only know on a very cursory level?

Then you get the people starving for attention and update their "status" accordingly: Skippy CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED!!!! Oh heavens Skippy. Whatever could have happened to you? I probably better respond so that you will tell me and we can have a wall-to-wall conversation. Those people make me mad.

I know I need to get back on point here and I shouldn't point out every single Facebook cliche there is. There are plenty of email forwards for that. Let me just mention one more and thats the whole parent invasion of Facebook. God Bless my father for staying the hell away from this thing because he sees it for what it is: horse shit. My mother on the other hand is all over it. And I appreciate it because even when nobody else does, she thinks I'm witty. And she makes comments about that. Incessantly. If she moves to Farmville though, I just might have to cut ties.

So again, I've made the comment a couple of times around the office that I watch Glee. After one episode in particular, I had a Facebook chat with one of our counselors whom we'll call Frant in which I extolled the virtues of such a wonderful show. I don't think anything at all about this innocuous, two-lined conversation until I get an email informing me that I'd been tagged in a photo by someone that we'll refer to as Chrisgina. Seems that Frant took a screenshot of said conversation (I seriously had no idea that this was even remotely possible yet if I bring this up in the office, I'm told how old and bald I am and to shut my mouth) and posted it on yet another counselor's wall whom we'll name Kevan. Chrisgina saw it and tagged my name because, apparently it's a moral imperative that my forced enjoyment of musical tv should be shared by everyone on my "friends" list. Touche' Chrisgina, touche' indeed.

By the time I get to a computer and make my little discovery, I have no less than 85 comments about my sweet pic. Seventy of those are from my sister who's taking dictation from my dad (seriously, he refuses to touch the book). He just wanted me to know that Kimberly doesn't watch Glee and look at what a stellar athlete/student/career woman she turned out to be. I watch musical television and I live with a pomeranian and three legged cat. Unfortunately, I really didn't have a leg to stand on (no offense to the cat) and I couldn't argue with them. Then she called me a bitch. I asked her if dad told her to say that and she said nope, that was from her. Touche' to her as well.

I immediately removed the tag from the picture so I wouldn't be showing up on anyone else's updates. No more torture for me. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Frant, Chrisgina, and Kevan. I truly am looking forward to the days when they are back in the office. You see, I've had weeks to sit and stew and come up with creative ways to get my revenge. Should I be aggressive or passive aggressive? Why not both? This is going to be so much fun.

The time is getting close. I might have to delete the old Facebook account. Much like ICQ and AIM before it, it's run its course. I'm outgrowing it. Actually I outgrew it before I ever signed up but its time to let it go. And I have Glee to thank.

FU FB

Futility and Humility

I was SO PUMPED this weekend. Kristen was all like, yes sir you can watch football. I like to think it's because I was so excited since there were so many great games on. In reality I paid my dues by watching 17 episodes of Say Yes To The Dress with nine episodes coming from Kleinfeld's in New York and eight coming from the Atlanta store that employs the greatest fashion director EVER...Monte. Whatevs.

Anyway, I wanted to watch the Georgia-USC game at noon. Fellas I live in South Carolina now where USC means the University of South Carolina. Everywhere else in the world it means Southern Cal. However I'm not really into the whole brevity thing so I figured I'd indulge you and explain. Anywho, I had a dillema because I also had an appointment to take my car into the Honda place at noon. Whatever would I do? Never fear dudes because Honda has a big screen and it turns out that the overweight salesmen in short sleeves and ties AND customer service reps were really excited about the game also. They made sure the game was on instead of taking care of my car. In fact it took an hour and a half for them to tell me there was absolutely nothing wrong with my car. But I didn't care because I was being manly and watching football. Could this day get any better? ABSOLUTELY. They also had free hamburgers and hot dogs and unlimited fountain drinks.

Cut to two weeks later because I got lazy and stopped writing. Check it out though yo, I'm still excited about this weekend because there's so much football. I don't have to take my car into any lame ass car dealership though. I'm probably going to sit on the couch and watch the games with my new pomeranian puppy named Jeffrey. Kristen pretty much HAS to let me. Why? Duhh because I'm a full blown Gleek. Hell yes I watched that show. Not cuz I wanted to though. Again I was paying my dues. Unfortunately for me though, that show has an unwanted side-effect. Oh Lady Gaga, why do you haunt my inner monologues so? I've been singing Telephone to myself for three days. (Check this segue) But that's okay Lady G because this weekend I'm going to watch Boise State phone it in and unexpectedly get crushed by Oregon State. Talk about a Bad Romance. Word.

I'm probably going to be allowed watch another game or two because I ALSO took Kristen to see Jason Mraz last night. Don't ask, it went exactly as you would probably expect it to. The dude stood on stage and would make his band play while he ate cantaloupe and then talk about why he loves cantaloupe and how we shouldn't drink from plastic water bottles but should actually carry our own metal canteens of water like he does. Jason Mraz, you can take your wienered out fedora and punch yourself in your melon eating face. But you're a pretty sweet guitar player...and you can dance.

Question: What is sadder, the fact that my wife just spent $30 on Glee soundtrack music or the fact that I just put it on my ipod?

Hangin with Ursher and Luda

Kristen had her national AVMA conference in Atlanta a few weeks ago. We decided to turn it into a little mini vacation since we won't have the opportunity for a real trip this year. I was excited for three reasons (in addition to the fact that I got to spend three uninterrupted days with my wife): 1) I was born in Atlanta and haven't been back there since 1980. I don't know why that's exciting. 2) We got to see a Braves game which I've never gotten to do before. 3) I got to tell people that I was headed to the A-T-L. I'm a big fan of initials, acronyms, and shortcuts....almost as big a fan as using my area code for where I am. For example, I don't live in Charleston, South Carolina. I stay in the 843....but I come from the 318. But I digress. I digress a lot.

Kristen flew down on Friday morning and I'd drive down on Saturday. We both had Monday off so it would be a nice three-day weekend. Saturday night, the AVMA paid the band Train to be the evening's entertainment. They're popular because they have that omnipresent song "Hey Soul Sister." I didn't know they sang that. I thought it was some chick. Imagine my surprise when they busted that little ditty out. I'm all like hey its that effing song that I hate because it's on every third commercial that comes on TV. The concert actually wasn't bad. The lead singer has some serious pipes and probably could have sang in an 80's hair band. He also took his shirt off which made my wife really happy for some reason. I don't know why because I'm firing heavy artillery rounds every time I take mine off. YESSSSSS. The guitar player is also the spitting image of Howie Mandel which is weird for me. Seriously look him up.

Sunday we were really excited because we were going to Six Flags. I grew up going to Six Flags over Texas but I haven't been since I was a senior in high school. We couldn't wait to get on these roller coasters. Until some gimpy wooden thing called the Georgia Cyclone. That bitch took us to OZ man. That thing shook us so incredibly hard and we just wanted it to end. To make matters worse there were two little ten year olds riding in front of us that kept screaming like girls and laughing. Kristen wanted to skull drag them down the exit ramp but I told her not to because that's rude.

We needed a break so we rode the cable cars. While riding across the park, we spotted the Ninja and I forgot all about Oz. Why? Because ninja's are awesome and it had like six loops. I became the ten year old that was screaming like a girl and laughing. What I didn't count on was the seat in front of me being broken. On every turn, the back of the seat would pound into my knee making me say the f word like 45 times. That might seem like an inordinate amount of f words but that's just how many crazy turns and loops were on this ride. That's because it's a ninja. And ninja's are awesome.

We also rode Superman which kind of supersucked. I mean hey, I guess it's a novel idea to make a roller coaster that you ride on your stomach because it makes you feel like you're flying like Superman. Except you don't feel like that. You spend the ride sucking in your stomach because it keeps falling towards the ground while your head and your legs are strapped in and can't move. Then you twist and turn and get sick as hell but you can't throw up because you're wife is riding next to you and called you a puss seven different times throughout the course of the ride because you accidentally screamed like a girl and then farted on the first drop.

I say all this to illustrate that something happens to a man in the 10+ years between high school and his thirties. Rollercoasters become an exercise in demasculinization. Amusement parks cease being fun and you realize why your parents always looked so pissed off when they were walking you around as a kid. They can't ride the rides anymore, admission is $50, and ICEE's are $10. Crazy stuff.

We went to a Braves game Monday night and had a good time. We ate hot dogs and I had Dippin Dots for the first time which was odd/cool. The Mets aren't any good so the Braves won. We went back to the hotel and packed for the drive back to the 843 the next day. Overall it was a nice little get away but I think we're ready for a beach trip again. We're thinking Bermuda with some friends. B-E-R? I don't know, it doesn't really roll off the tongue. We'll figure something out though.

Man Date

My buddy Richard and I decided two weeks ago to go see the Expendables. It's pretty much the manliest movie ever made. How do I even prepare to take on such an epic review? I need manly music. I hit play and Jewel started asking me who would save my soul. I said hell no snaggle tooth, I yield to Metallica. So with Ride The Lightening thrashing in the background, I give you man date.

I've pretty much been waiting for this movie to come out for two years. I read an interview with Sylvester Stallone around the time I saw Rambo. He said it was time to bring 80's action back. America is suffering from an extreme lack of ultra musclebound, ultra violent, ultra accented action heroes. Plot be damned, we need loud explosions and gratuitous violence, and maybe boobs. The only problem is Hollywood is suffering from the same problem as the music industry: too many pussies. I'm sorry, Michael Cera and Jonah Hill are not going to cut it with gatling guns and throat ripping. Stallone went old school. He brought in Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Terry Crews, Randy Coutere, and Jason Statham to fight against Eric Roberts, Stone Cold Steve Austin and some dude who use to make a butt load of straight-to-HBO martial arts movies named Gary. Most important of all (in my eyes anyway), Stallone brought in Dolph F'ing Lundgren. Ivan Drago from Rocky IV. The dude is over 50 and his jaw is like a solid trapezoid. And he still has a lot of blonde hair. The movie just reaffirmed my aversion to Swedish people but in like a really badass way.

So, long story longer, Richard texted me on a Friday with two words: Expendables tonight? HELL YES. I immediately started making plans. I would drink a crap load of diet cokes to be ripped and wired. Then, after work, I would head straight to the gym to lift a crap load of weights so I'd be properly pumped to drive to the theater. We would then go to Cinebarre, one of those theaters that serves you dinner. There, I would dine on a crap load of steak and beer while I watched the manliest of man movies. I felt it was my duty as a man.

However, after consuming all the diet cokes, I suffered from caffeine withdrawal so I crashed. I no longer felt like lifting weights so I called Richard and told him I was coming over to discuss strategy for getting to the theater. Richard wussed out on dinner and decided to eat a Lean Cuisine. I punched him in the jaw. We skipped Cinebarre and went to the normal theater instead. That's cool because I could at least just get some popcorn. We settled in to get ready for the ride. This was the culmination of two years of dorking out. Let me see if I can summarize my thoughts on the actual movie.

Dude this movie is like one giant Andrew WK song. We open with hostages and the expendables show up. What happens? Dolph Lundgren shoots a dude in half with a shotgun and then people throw knives and shit. Sweet. Then back home, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger show up and have a conversation with Stallone. It's completely pointless but so incredibly cool because these three dudes among dudes are all on screen together. Wood. Stallone and Statham go visit the bad guys. The bad guys hang out in what can only be described as a lair. A FUCKING LAIR. Straight up videogame style lair. Statham and Stallone decide to shoot a bunch of bad guys with a cargo plane. They then decided that riddling the bad guys with bullets isn't enough. Stallone circles the plane back around and dumps gasoline on them and then Statham pops up out of the nose of the plane and shoots a flare gun at the gas covered bad guys. Why? Because this is an action movie mother fucker and he could get away with it. So not only are the bad guys flailing with unrealistic yet awesome gunshot wounds, they're now on fire. But not just any sort of fire. This gas was obviously explosive because they don't just flame, hell no these dudes explode. CARNAGE.

Statham and Stallone go home and hang out with Mickey Rourke. He smokes a pipe like Gandalf and tattoos people. He says some philosophical stuff to Stallone because the girls watching the movie need a deep part. While all this occurs, Statham finds out this girl he's been seeing got beat up by this other dude she was seeing. Bad move sir. Statham takes his Ducati to the playground where this dude is playing pickup basketball with his boys. Statham doesn't care. He delivered one of the most badass ass whippings I've ever seen on film. And it was on a playground. Dude took out like six other dudes. Nothing was sacred. He punched nuts and grabbed hair. Why? Because this is combat and not little league. And because he's one of the expendables.

After that, the whole crew gets together to go back to the LAIR. Why? We're still not really sure but mainly because man rules dictate that when there are bad guys and a lair, you take it out. So the team goes except for Dolph. He went rogue and fought Jet Li so Stallone is all like hell no dude and shot him in the chest. So the team minus Dolph heads back down to take out the bad guys. Seriously the final fight was awesome. The expendables show up and start fighting people and starting fires. Stone Cold Steve Austin and Stallone had a sweet fight that involved lots of flipping and head butting. Jet Li and Statham fought the straight-to-HBO guy named Gary. But then the bad guys got the upper hand.

That is until Terry Crews shows up with Dolph's shotgun. This is no ordinary shotgun though as we come to find out. It is fully automatic with exploding rounds. This is the most perfect weapon of ALL TIME for shooting people in half. And then when people are shot in half, you can turn it on guard towers because that fully automatic shotgun will blow those things up too. The sound that shotgun made was sweet and I still hear it in my dreams. So what do they do next? Remember, there is a lair involved here. They had to blow that mother fucker up. I forgot to mention that they spent about ten minutes of the final fight placing charges. What kind of charges were these? I don't know but they probably came from the 80's. When they went off, the lair crumbled in on itself like lairs were made to do.

Cut back to Mickey Rourke's tattoo parlor. The guys are telling stories and playing darts. Except these dudes play darts with knives because thats what dudes that ripped do. And Dolph Lundgren was back. See, he's such a badass that even when he's shot in the chest, he survives. I can't explain it and I probably don't want to know because it might be too much for me to handle. Then Statham walks out the front door into the street and takes a knife and throws it at the camera. So help me if this movie would have been 3-D, I might have kissed Richard on the mouth right then and there. PERFECT ENDING.

As the credits rolled, there was absolute silence as we filed out of the theater. Every one of us was still in awe. Richard gave me a hug and I understood. We bonded for two hours of awesomness. I was so incredibly sore the next day because I was involuntarily flexing for the entire movie. That's what happens when that much testosterone is on one screen. It's probably a good thing I didn't go lift weights beforehand because my shirt would have ripped right off during the movie because I was so incredibly pumped. I don't know if that experience will ever be repeated. All I know is Richard and I have this almost telepathic relationship with each other now. When we see each other we automatically start flexing and posing and then immediately start laughing. Just like they did in the 80's. Hell Yes.

Nevermind about August and everything after. I've got a licence to ill in this tragic kingdom. Ten-Four

Remember the blog post a couple of months ago regarding my musical nostalgia that was completely disjointed and vague? Me neither. So I've decided to revisit this subject in a hopefully more entertaining fashion. The title of this little diddy here might seem a bit ostentatious. It's not though. You see what I've done is take the titles of several of the cd's I own from the 90's and combine it into a sentence. This seems like a good idea for two reasons: a) I came up with it and it's obviously genius. b) I've seriously eaten an entire box of Mike & Ike's, two gigantic hershey kiss and chocolate chip cookies, and chugged three diet cokes. I couldn't lie about something like that.

There's this dude in my office named Jackson. He's a student worker and a pretty cool kid. I say kid because Jackson was born in 1989. Jackson has a lot of hair and one day the girlfriend of a roommate or something pinned his butt down and straightened his hair with one of those straighteners that girls with nappy hair like to use. He came into the office looking just like one of the Beatles. He also looked like the dudes from Oasis so I thought it would be a good idea to nickname him Gallagher. Apparently he didn't get the joke because he kept giving me weird looks every time I'd say the name, point, laugh, and then tell him Don't Look Back In Anger dude, which just made him more confused.

Jackson's boss Jimmy and I are the same age and share the same musical tastes. Jimmy has seen Pearl Jam live 15 times. We both started quizzing him on bands from the 90's that more or less defined our musical vernacular. Come to find out, Jackson and his fellow student workers had never heard Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, 311, Blues Traveler, Beastie Boys, No Doubt, Bush, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Red Hot Chili Peppers, STP, on and on and on. Does that mean that I'm just getting that much older or is it testament to the fact that music and radio is confined to the drivel that is Ke$ha, Black Eyed Peas, and Bieber?

I made it my personal mission to burn as much music for Jackson as I could. I went home that night and made him two 90's sampler cds with a song or two from as many 90's artists as I could find. I own a lot of full albums from that era from the bands that had a little bit of shelf life. I consider many of the albums to be classics but a lot of my self professed 'music snob' friends do not. I added some Alice in Chains, Jane's Addiction, and Candlebox along with the aforementioned menage-a-rock. I proudly presented Jackson with two cd's to blow his mind. I came back an hour later and he was listening to 'Alive' by Pearl Jam. He had that confused look on his face again and told me he'd never heard it. I non-verbally told him to go fuck himself and marched straight to Jimmy's office to let him know that his very own student worker doesn't know one of the signature songs of his favorite band. Jimmy verbally told Jackson to go fuck himself and ordered him to keep listening.

I gave it another hour and walked back into Jackson's office. This is a bold dude, man. He had turned off the cd's and I kid you not was listening to Hall and Oates. I was beside myself and walked out without saying a word. The battle was lost but the war, while probably lost as well, was motivating me to open this kid's mine even if I had to pry it. So here I sit at my computer burning him full albums. This is the list so far: 311-self titled, Beastie Boys-License to Ill (80's yet still classic), Blink 182-Enema of the State, Blues Traveler-Four, Bush-Sixteen Stone, Counting Crows-August and Everything After, Nirvana-Nevermind, No Doubt-Tragic Kingdom, Oasis-Definitely Maybe and What's the Story Morning Glory, Pearl Jam-Ten, RHCP-Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic; Smashing Pumpkins-Siamese Dream, STP-Core, Third Eye Blind-self titled, U2-The Joshua Tree (80's but he'd never heard of this one either and that made me really sad) I might throw an AIC or Soundgarden album on there just to really grit things up but these should suffice.

Those albums I listed are indicative of the type of music I love but are in no way a complete representation of what I wish I could put on there. I've lost Weezer's Blue album and Green Day's Dookie. I never owned a lot of the one hit grunge bands like Sponge, Ruth Ruth,Marcy Playground, Schtum, and Trippin Daisy. I use to have Self's album but it's scratched beyond recognition and me and two other people are pretty much the only one's that have heard of them. I love 2 Skinnee J's but that might be a little too out there for him. I probably should have put Dr. Dre's The Chronic on there but I don't want to send the wrong message.

I wish I had a musical mentor to guide me when I was young and malleable like young Jackson. I had to do it on my own. Now I keep the dream alive by traveling to different horse tracks and casinos to see my favorite bands of yore; now fat, bald and pathetic, fighting the good fight. Hey Jealousy? Yes please. Cumbersome? Always. Sex and Candy? Whenever and wherever. Here's to you 90's music. And all your flannel and angst. Rock on.

Craft Beer and My Boy Sergio

The night started off innocently enough. I had the noblest of intentions. We were going to meet a friend at a hippy bar called The Pour House so we could grab some food on the back patio and then watch a band inside later that night. Kristen and I got there and the patio was deserted with the exception of the bartender and some creepy looking 50 year olds.

Our friend Colleen arrived and took one look at the patio and agreed with our assessment that it was lame so we decided to head across the street to a Mexican restaurant called Zia's. Now my name is Chris, but once we were at Zia's I became "The Most Interesting Man In The World" because I started pounding Dos Equis while Kristen and Colleen each had a margarita. I knew the beer was starting to kick in because I told every person in the bar at least three times to "stay thirsty my friends." That's all well and good but it became infinitely cuter when I did the same thing seven different times to a table of tweens and their respective soccer moms on the way to the bathroom because I broke the seal. Seriously, seven trips creeping out 12 year olds. Colleen's friend Jeremiah showed up at Zia's and I felt bad because by the time he got there, I was already "That Guy." As an aside, let me apologize for all of the "s but I'm afraid it's just going to get worse. Anywho, Colleen convinced Kristen to order a second margarita which is just not a good idea. Her face was already numb and she did not need anymore alcohol so I did what any husband who looks out for the well-being of his wife would do: I chugged it for her.

At this point I'm lit, Kristen's buzzed, Colleen's feeling pretty good, and Jeremiah is wondering just what in the hell makes me so interesting. We decided to head back over to the Pour House. In order to do this we have to cross four lanes of fairly heavy traffic. The girls and Jeremiah made it with no problem but it looked like I was playing a cross between hop scotch and twister across the highway. The reality of the situation is I couldn't really walk. I persevered though and made it across the street.

Once we paid the cover and got inside, Jeremiah and I headed straight for the bar. I need to say that a reason to add to the list of why Charleston is so great is the sheer number of craft beers they have on tap. I've lost track of all the different beers I've had but I've also gained 15 lbs since I moved here so I know the volume is large. I got a Solo cup of something dark and immediately went over to the merch table to check out this band I would be patronizing. There name was Oregone and they're from L.A. Oregone plays a mix of funk and soul which pretty much defines me. (that's sarcasm) As I'm checking out the vinyl albums, I notice a tall dude with a big ass 'fro and a bushy ass beard. I'm all like hey dude, are you the merch guy? He's all like nahh man I play guitar....and my name is Sergio. I'm like hell yes what kind of gear do you have, and that is a badass name. He reluctantly starts discussing this with me and I'm completely oblivious to the fact that I've just 100% cock blocked this guy. He was macking pretty hard on a hippy chick but I would not be denied. That's how drunk I was. He was in the middle of telling me about his gear setup when I figured it would be a good idea to go tell my wife how incredibly hammered I was so I turned my back on him mid sentence. I'm a real jerk when I drink. That's actually not true but Sergio probably thought so.

While we're waiting for the band to start playing, I continued drinking and Colleen brings up another friend of hers named Paul. Paul is from the Ukraine and has an electrical engineering degree and a law degree. That's what he told us anyway. I was to the point that I'd believe anything but looking back on it, I'm pretty sure he was fucking with me. He even got me to do a fist bump grenade which I don't think I've ever done before in my life. Now that I'm reflecting, that was probably not the coolest thing I've done but it certainly wasn't the lowest part of the evening for me.

Did I mention I was three sheets to the wind? Oregone finally started playing and it was my time to shine. The Pour House is a bit of a hippy bar. If you've ever gone out in Baton Rouge, it reminds me a little bit of Ichabods. Since my hair doesn't really work anymore, I had a hard time pulling off the nappy haired hippy look but I had something they didn't have...fratasticism. Picture if you will, Chris Noland in Polo shirt, cargo shorts, and Sperry's. Yes sirrreee, I was fratastic. I stepped up to the stage, toe to toe with the singer and mere inches from the bongo player with the flat billed cap....and I danced. Nay. I hippy danced. Head staring straight at the floor, both fists up around my ears, shoulders swaying, and Sperry's firmly in place. I did this for an hour and a half without stopping. The only time I looked up from the floor was to make eye contact with my boy Sergio. Sergio looked pissed but I know that's because he wished he could be down at the foot of that stage dancing along with me. I say I had both fists up and that's true but I didn't realize I had a beer in one of those fists until Kristen pointed out that my shirt was soaking wet. Apparently in my meditative dance I spilled the beer all over my shirt. That's cool man because the music and I were one.

The rest of this story pretty much had to be told to me because I don't really remember it. Kristen managed to get me in the car and we started the drive back to the Creek. As some of you no doubt know, I'm a bit of a drunk dialer. Apparently I called my sister. She didn't answer and I let her know how much I didn't appreciate her not being at her phone. I've since had the message played back for me because apparently she wants to hold on to this one for posterity. I didn't know I had the ability to use the word 'motherfucker' in so many different ways. Verbs, adverbs, adjectives, proper nouns, formal names, locations, pet names, cars, my friend Richard W's mom, Sergio's guitar playing ability post stinkeye, etc. To make matters worse, after I hung up with my sister's voicemail, it made complete since to call my mother. Kristen was powerless because I'm so adorable when I'm on blackout. So yeah, I called Reva and I did the only possible thing that made sense to my inebriated brain when she answered. I talked about real estate. I don't really know the details of the discussion and quite frankly I've tried to pretend it didn't happen and haven't broached the subject since. I think some things are better off buried.

We made it home and apparently I wasn't ready to go to bed. Kristen feel asleep pretty quickly but the only thing I really remember was a flash of me sitting in the car and then blinking and sitting up in bed in the guest room, fully clothed, all the lights on, OD's ass in my face and the clock saying 8am. Needless to say I felt awful. I drank a bunch of water and then walked out my back door. I literally walked six miles because something deep inside me was telling me I needed to sweat out the alcohol. I don't know why that urge always comes because I don't think its actually possible/beneficial/sensical but never-the-less, six miles I walked. I spent the rest of the morning listening to my sister laugh at me about the message and then laugh even harder at the fact that I drunk dialed my mom. I'm 31 years old. This shit isn't suppose to happen.

When I started writing this I was aiming for some sort of epic comedic story. I think I waited too long to type it up because it sort of turned stream of consciousness. We all had a blast that night but man, Sergio was pissed. I sure hope that dude got laid.

Hippies and Pizza

We're looking for a house in Mount Pleasant, SC. Those that know me fairly well know how much I hate it in the Creek. I'm just really tired of seeing dragon tattoos on fat women's boobs. I know you probably can't picture that and think I'm just exaggerating but I assure you it's true. There is a dragon-on-fat-boob epidemic going on where I live. Mount Pleasant is much more my speed. It's two miles from the beach, has a Whole Foods that Bill Murray frequents and most importantly of all, has a Mellow Mushroom.

If there is one combination that I love, it is hippies and pizza. Throw in a little high gravity beer that they serve there and I'm a happy man. Kristen is not happy about the beer part though. I'd never had high gravity beer before and didn't know what that meant. Now I do and so does Kristen and I'm not suppose to talk about it. Let's just say that it's no fun being the lone sober person around the drunk guys but I thought I was rather charming. I bring Mellow Mushroom up because we went there after looking at a couple of houses in Mt. P tonight. You know what else rocks? It was trivia night. I don't care that the hostess put us in the section that was farthest away and apparently closed so that I witnessed three separate servers arguing over who would take care of us. Kristen was both annoyed and embarrassed when I'd yell out the answers even though we didn't have our electronic trivia pad. I sounded like Timmy from South Park. The hippies didn't mind though because they're far out and cool. That's how you have to be to work at Mellow Mushroom. They LOVE me.

Since we both came from work, we'd taken separate cars. Kristen left and I decided to be chivalrous and stop at the cupcake store and get her something for dessert when she got home (shut up and don't be dirty). However it was closed so that had to wait. I did however stop and get gas. While I was pumping (shut up) I saw a man with the top of his head completely bald but the rest of his head was a beautiful flowing mullet. Top that off with the fact that he was walking directly towards a sweetass, old school Camaro. I thought HELL YES, if you only had a jean jacket and an REO Speedwagon shirt on I'd walk up and shake your hand. Then he walked directly pass the Camaro and got into a full on 1970's porno van. I immediately thought Fuck That, he's a pederass. Freaked me out and made me want out of the Creek even more.

Going to see Aziz Ansari on Thursday night. Should be awesome because I love Indians.

I'm So Tired Of Losing My Man Card...

Since I work for College of Charleston, I get to use the gym facilities for free. I go during my lunch break since it's right next door to my office. The only drawback is that there aren't any showers on site so I come back to the office sweaty. That's no fun because a) I still have to work and b) I make a giant sweaty heart on my chest every time and everyone finds it necessary to point it out. While nothing can really be done about the heart shaped awesomeness, the girls that I work with told me about a sure fire way to de-funkify myself....baby wipes. So picture me in my office pulling the wet wipes out of the tube and rubbing them everywhere. I must admit its refreshing but dammit they stink and they make my office stink and up my creepiness factor. So to recap, I grew a mustache, drank water from the crotch of an angelic statue, and work in an office smelling of eau de moist toilette. I'm officially creepy.

Sunday night was the final episode of Lost. The show got me good. The next day I was sad since I've been watching it for six years and now its gone. Really weird feeling. I was talking about it with my buddy Michael O'boyle and he agreed. That show is powerful and kind of how he and I got to know each other. We worked in the same place for a short time but would talk all about the show and throw different ideas off of each other. Very cool way to build a friendship. Now the show is gone and I am facing some rather severe consequences. By that I mean one consequence and by that one consequence I mean Glee. I no longer have an excuse not to watch that damn show with Kristen anymore. I hate that show. I hate that show because it is catchy. I hate that show because now I think I'm becoming a fan of Lady Gaga. The song Bad Romance was on the show last night and it stayed in my head all day long. I'm pretty sure I didn't sing it out loud but I'm not 100% positive and that scares me. I don't want to be a performance artist but it might be unavoidable.

Since I watched Glee, Kristen agreed to a man movie tonight. That man movie was Macgruber. Go see this. We both laughed till we cried. Probably the stupidest movie I've ever seen but it was stupid smart and therefore actually funny...really funny. I want a mullet to go with my baby wiping, crotch sipping, mustachioed ass. Hell yes! (first and only time I'll ever use an exclamation point on this page)

Dragging Ass On The Cobblestones

I haven't jogged in a long time. Before we moved, we were regularly running 5-10 miles at a time and considered ourselves in great shape. When we got out here, that changed. Moving is extremely stressful and didn't really leave me wanting for any more exertion, mentally or physically. Not to mention the fact that the running trails around the Creek are often clogged with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle-toothless-tattooed-woman-in-wife-beater-tank-top-and-jorts as they're chain smoking while I'm trying to exercise.

That changed today. Melanie is a girl I work with who also runs a variety of 5K's, 10K's, half and full marathons. Being the unabashed badass that I am, I volunteered to go run around Charleston during our lunch break today. As it goes, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The long and short of it is she kicked my ass. As an aside, when we started we ran by my buddy Richard. The dude didn't even notice me. I was literally three inches from him and I started screaming and flailing my arms like an idiot. Apparently he had his headphones on and was oblivious to me making a fool of myself in public while I was trying to get his attention. Boy did he pick the wrong dude to make enemies with. He's completely blacklisted. I spent half the run trying to convince Melanie that the guy was actually my friend.

We ran by Colonial Lake and down Murray Blvd. which runs along the brick ramparts overlooking Charleston Harbor. We stopped in White Point Gardens for a water break. I've never had such an awkward time trying to get a drink of water before. The water fountain was either a statue of an angel or a little kid, I couldn't really be sure. All I know is that the water was coming out of it's crotch. I don't think there's any way to write about this tactfully. I'm either a sacrilegious ass or a reiteration of the guy people thought I was in my mustache blog. This time I didn't have aviators on though. I bent down and went for it because I was thirsty. To my knowledge, nobody was staring or reporting me. Twice in a week would really suck. Melanie and I didn't really talk about it after that because some things are better left unsaid.

We started on our way back and I'd held my own up this point. However, the sun was out in full force and I started feeling it. As much as I didn't want to, I had to stop. I begged Melanie to keep going so as to save me the shame of getting my tail whipped by a girl. No go. She stopped and walked with me. My head was low and hers was held high in triumph. This happened at least two more times after I started running again. My dad was right, they should have named me Susie when I was born.

We eventually found ourselves back at the admissions office. I looked like our three-legged cat dragging himself across the floor. Melanie barely broke a sweat which made me feel even worse because I can't begin to describe how funky and sweaty I was. I'm seriously hoping she didn't see my tears when she said we could stop. At this point, I needed to find something to drink and she had this Coconut water thing and told me to go to this place called Caviar and Bananas around the corner to grab one. I did this in all of my sweaty glory. Yeah apparently the people at the hippy store don't like it when you come in sweaty. The check out girl LITERALLY curled her lip and threw my credit card and slip at me. I'm honestly not embellishing that at all. I am with this part though: I punched her in her blonde-ass face.

Overall I felt great albeit humbled and ashamed to have my ass handed to me in such dominant fashion...by a girl. But hey man, its 2010 so it's okay for that to happen. F you if you disagree. That's all I've got going for me right now. Hopefully I can start this running kick again and get back to where I was again soon. Also, and how badass is this, Melanie put me in touch with a dude who is going to teach me how to surf. Kristen doesn't know this yet, but we're watching Point Break this weekend. I don't know whether I should call myself Bodhi or Utah but I'm going to start talking about Fiji, and Bali, and the Pipeline. Noland on a surfboard will be the coolest thing EVER since my mom let me dress up like a ninja for Halloween in Kindergarden...which was awesome except for the battery-powered glow in the dark pumpkin she made me carry for safety. All blacked out ninja uniform plus hood and a bright orange pumpkin. Ain't nobody messing with my mama's baby boy. But I digress. I wish I wasn't balding so I could grow my hair out and let it get sun bleached so I can hang out with my new bros while I'm catching tubes and shit. This place is fun.

Sam Elliott Eat Your Heart Out

I slept late on Friday so I didn't shave before work. Didn't feel like shaving on Saturday because its the weekend and I'm a dude therefore I do what I want. Sunday was heathen/beach/mother's day or as I like to look at it, an opportunity. I wanted to see if I was sly enough to walk out of the house with a mustache. This is one of those things that girl's can see even if they're three rooms away. They know when the stache is present because it exudes absolute awesomeness. Apparently the awesomeness on mine had petered out a bit or not quite reached it's potential depending on if you're a glass is half empty/half full type of person. I actually made it out of the house and into the car fully muffed and I had a decision to make. Do I tell Kristen now or do I fully commit? I committed. Hindsight being what it is, I now wish Kristen was more intuitive.

We made it halfway to the beach before she beheld me in my full, facial glory (I will thank you not to make a sick joke out of that but if you do, then bully for you). She slapped me. At least that's what she says she did. Felt more like an elbow to my jaw but I'll yield to her on this one. At this point, I feel pretty cool and pretty confident. Let me also mention that I have my aviator sunglasses on. We make it out to Isle of Palms with Kristen walking quite a few feet ahead of me so you can't even tell we're together. From the parking lot, you have to walk past a children's playground on the way to the beach. We set up our stuff and then I ran back to use the rest room, having to pass the playground again. I take a look in the mirror, sunglasses still on. Good God Almighty, I look like a cross between Lt. Dangle from Reno 911 and Kip from Napoleon Dynamite. I'm in trouble and I have to walk past the damn playground for a third time to get back to my beach chair. I'm not saying that the parents were necessarily staring, but I sure wished Kristen and her flying elbows were a little closer when I was walking by to defend my honor. Maybe if I would have taken off the sunglasses, it would reduce the impact of the stereotyping going on but then people might know who I am if they saw these beautiful blue eyes.

Once I made it back to the beach chair I didn't move and I didn't look at anyone. I kept a book around my face. When we finally decided to leave, I thought I'd play it cool and act like I was scratching my nose the whole way back. I don't really recommend that because you wind up looking like your picking your nose for 100 yards as I walked by the playground AGAIN. Needless to say, the mustache experiment came to an end the second I walked back into our house. I'm back on my neckbeard quest because that will must make me look even bad assier. We shall see.

On a completely different note, might I point out that the best beach volleyball movie ever made was on tv Saturday night. Side-Out rivals only the shirtless, blue jeaned volleyball scene from Top Gun as the imagery most likely to get Chris Noland to play volleyball.

Excuse me Flo? What's the Soup Du Jour?

We live in one of the must culturally diverse, cuisine rich cities in America. When Kristen got home from work we decided to go out to eat because we were both starving. Whatever did we choose to sample from this fine dining mecca? Hell Yes we went to Denny's. I've never been to Denny's before. I moved 1000 miles across the country to go eat at mf'in Denny's. And you know something? It wasn't bad. I sure didn't know what I was in store for but my expectations weren't huge. I was pleasantly surprised when I only saw one customer with a wife beater tank top with ubiquitous gaudy shoulder tattoo. He was missing most of his teeth and had cutoff shorts on. Basically I'm telling you he was the total package. If he would have had a bandanna on his shaved head or a jean jacket I would have gone up to shake his hand and thank him for making my initial Denny's dining experience the tits.

I had a turkey sandwich and it rocked. Kristen had a grand slam breakfast with cheesy hash browns which rocked even harder. I finished them for her. She didn't necessarily appreciate that but I don't care because I had my toothless wonder as my wingman and I would receive no backtalk from her with him by my side. Kathie our waitress was on the ball. She greeted us at the door and offered our pick of tables. We could even have a booth by the window. Hell yes please. She kept our glasses full with our tasty beverage of choice. She let us know that they only serve Coke products therefore removing the otherwise inevitable anxiety of ordering a Diet Coke only to be asked if Diet Pepsi was okay. That made sense in my head but I have no clue if it translated well. All in all it was a great experience. Good food, good service, and the best company you could ask for in a 24-hour restaurant. This might be weekly date night central for the Nolands.

On a side note: Until we move, we are f'ed. The only gas stations anywhere near us are Sunoco's and BP. Do we support the jerks who talked about my nuts or the jerks who destroyed the Gulf of Mexico. Your thoughts are welcome.

Only In The Creek

Kristen was on call this weekend so I rode up to the clinic with her while she took care of the animals in the hospital. On the way back, I pulled into a gas station to fill up her car and while doing so, decided to wash her windshield. As I'm doing so, someone from inside comes on the loudspeaker yelling, "scrub it, scrub it like you've never scrubbed before." I'm thinking okay thats cool, someone inside is bored and he's entertaining himself. Good for him. Then I hear, "scrub it like you're scrubbing your nuts. That's right you scrub your nuts because you're gay." I look around and everyone else pumping gas is just aghast. I'm livid at this point but don't really feel like going in and confronting anyone. That's not really how I work. Kristen's in the car wondering what the hell just happened. I get in and drive off completely incredulous at what just happened. Being the sometimes passive aggressive person that I am, I wrote a letter to the company as soon as I got home.

There's fun and then there's idiocy. I've done some immature things in my life but, to my knowledge, never really crossed any sort of moral boundaries (with the exception of Andy Ryan and my little side business in middle school and the Captain Shreve yearbook that Kevin Bruce and I authored). Seriously this was just stupid and the kind of thing I really think someone should lose their job over. I won't be going back to that company for gas again. Since it's such a large corporation, I doubt I hear back from them regarding my letter but I figured it was the least I could do. We called a real estate agent today and hopefully will be moving a little closer to Charleston proper very soon.

Chris Noland's Animal Adventures

The three legged cat is not in a good mood this week. He's started begging to go outside which is both good and bad. Good because he uses the litter box less, opting to go outside instead and consequently our house smells fresher. And by fresher I mean less like cat pee saturated litterbox and more like our dirty dogs. Bad because he has three legs which is an obvious disadvantage when it comes to defending his turf because other animals, unlike humans, do not stop to ooogle the awesomeness that is his missing leg. They just attack.

However, being the ninja that he is, he sometimes escapes through the door, usually by some means of misdirection causing us to turn our backs while he bolts through the open door. Long story longer, we decided to put a rabies tag on him just in case he escapes long term and is picked up by some glutton for punishment who does not mind a jaundiced, low and left leaning, eternally grumpy cat.

Kristen's clinic was out of cat collars though so he has a small dog collar on which is HUGE on him. In addition to the rabies tag, he also has a name tag with our phone numbers on them. Again, they were out of cat tags so he has a big dog bone on his collar that says Tucker. All total these things weigh about eight pounds. Tucker weighs nine. Tucker can't walk now. His head is weighed down on the floor so he just sort of pulls himself along the ground with his front paws. I might have to stage an intervention.

About 3am this morning I woke up with charlie horses in my legs and in a panic because something heavy was on my chest. OD, our affable yet adhd afflicted 50 pound dog had somehow opened our bedroom door and hopped on the bed and onto my chest, completely negating my ability to move. He was also sound asleep and would not wake up. And no joke, he snores. My arms were asleep and I was trapped. Kristen refused to wake up no matter how much I screamed. I sounded like Eric Cartman trying to crap out Disney Land, begging her to get OD off of me. No luck. I resigned myself to my misery and eventually fell back asleep. I'm in pain right now. I woke up to our halfway toothless, balding pomeranian Pee Wee licking me in the face. Sounds cute until he stopped, looked at me with his adorable little pomeranian face....and farted. Thats his thing now. He's seriously like an old man. Just doesn't give a damn anymore and farts whenever he feels like it no matter who's around. I'm not sure if I'm disgusted or proud. Probably a little bit of both. Such is my life being married to a veterinarian.

Look at your man...Now back at me.

We live in South Carolina. We live by the beach. The weather has been 75 degrees and clear skies for over a month. It's only April and I look tanner than a self-made millionaire having his mid-life crisis in the Caribbean. I look good.

Today was my first day of work. The first thing I did was take my new College of Charleston ID photo. I was dressed to impress and I was bronzed. I took a look at that picture and I laughed. I laughed at just how damn good I looked. I wish I could put that picture on this page here. But I can't because that would require effort and that's just not going to happen. I came home and showed my wife how good I looked in the picture. She rolled her eyes and said my head would not fit through the door because of my ego. I told her to shut her face and make me a sandwich. She kicked me in the nuts. But that's okay because my nuts are not my face and my face still looked good pressed against the floor. Then we went to Zaxby's. Zaxyby's is just like Raising Cane's in Louisiana. Someone will be sued because they are the same. I smiled, winked, and nodded at everyone I saw inside because I had that kind of day. The kind of day where I took the most epic picture of my life. I rule.

All In Due Time

Random thought: I occasionally listen to movie soundtracks and right now I have Gladiator on and I forgot how completely badass this thing is. That movie was a defining moment of the 2000's for me and this soundtrack really pumps me up. Check it out if you haven't done so.

As I've repeated ad nauseum, we had a few goals when we moved out here. I wanted to write, try voiceovers, and work in higher education. The first two are pretty much hobbies right now. I've been working part time in the sports department at the Charleston Post and Courier but it was just helping out and no writing to speak of. I continue to look for different avenues to explore voiceovers and have talked to a few successful voiceover artists so hopefully that takes me somewhere one day.

I'd interviewed for two positions at the College of Charleston in early March but had given up hope on landing one of them. Then last week, while I was at the Family Circle Cup (Charleston Professional Tennis Tournament) I got a call letting me know that the college wanted to hire me as their Transfer Credit Evaluation Coordinator. Needless to say I was beside myself as I'd started feeling pretty low being more or less unemployed. I talked it over with Kristen just to make sure we were both on the same page and then called the college back to accept. I start on Monday. The optimism is back and truly its a good feeling.

Our goal was to live for us and that's exactly what we're doing. Life is good and hopefully it will continue to only get better...

An Open Letter to the Princeton Review

Dear Princeton Review: My wife and I moved to Charleston with several goals in mind. One of those goals was for me to go back to school. Obviously, to get into graduate school I have to take the GRE again (my other scores are obsolete now) so I picked up your book in hopes that it would help me to prepare and get an acceptable score on this mother of all standardized tests for those of us without the foresight to get a business or science degree instead of a liberal arts education.

Thanks to your book, I had a stack of index cards six inches thick with hundreds of the "most used words on the GRE." I spent the last six months going over these words again and again and again. I now know that 'grandiloquent' means pompous. I am also not able to say that word without using a British accent but your book did not teach me that part, I came up with it all on my own. Yes, I learned 'grandiloquent' and many other words that I will most likely never use in every day speech. Kudos to you for helping me to broaden my horizons. Unfortunately though, that's all you did. I took the GRE and a grand total of THREE of those words were used. The even funnier part about that is that they weren't used until the experimental section that all test takers are required to complete. That section doesn't even count. Allow me if you will, to recap my test taking experience.

I pulled up to the testing center. Now, I'm not normally one to suffer from text anxiety, but I had some butterflies floating around in my stomach. To my surprise though, they weren't actually butterflies. My bowels were dancing and letting me know that I might need to take drastic action and break my rule of no public number twos. The irrational part of my brain assumed that since I'm in a fairly metropolitan area, this testing center is probably big and will have large restrooms with many stalls. Nope, I walked in and it was one door, one commode, one can of air spray. This would not happen, I could suffer through the test and maybe it would all go away so I walked back to the reception area. After signing in, I waited to be escorted into the actual testing room. It was my turn but before I could stand up, a fat girl with an attitude stepped in front of me. She was there to take some sort of educational exam that required three finger prints. So Large Marge got to go in before me but what can I do about it? I waited again and eventually was led to my station.

First up was the writing portion of the exam. As you know, this consists of two essays (as an aside, i'd like to point out that thanks to you, I know that essay not only means written prose, but also 'to experiment or try,' a form which as i stated above, I will never use). One topic I will agree or disagree with. The other is an argument that I have to attack. This part was pretty easy except that the first topic was whether or not I think professors should have practical experience in the real world before teaching college. Sometimes graduate professors read these apparently so I might be insulting the very people I'm trying to impress with my scores. Touche' GRE. The argument I had to attack was about video games. No problem there, I play those. However I find it quite presumptuous that the GRE test writers think that just because one takes this test, they must be quite nerdy and very familiar with video games. But presumptuousness be damned, I rocked it. This has nothing to do with you Princeton Review but I put up with your nonsense so you can put up with mine.

Next was verbal and I had 20 minutes or so to go through 30 questions. Holy Wow, I don't even know where to begin other than to say that you need one of those EPIC FAIL posters that gets forwarded to everyone's email once a month. Yours wouldn't be funny or ironic, it would just be a picture of your book. Like I mentioned above, there was not one single vocabulary word from your massive list on this section. Regarding the reading comprehension, your "helpful hints" section told me to read the first and last sentence of every paragraph instead of the entire entry. Then proceed to the questions. Newsflash hotshot, every single paragraph consisted of one VERY long sentence followed by a brief concluding sentence. So by reading the first and last sentence of every paragraph, I still had to read the whole damn thing and they are very very long. After going through these questions, I hit the next button that would bring up question 28 and I had a minute and a half left. My thought process at this point was that with two questions left, surely it will be a couple of antonym's or analogies or fill in the blanks. Absolutely not. It was the mother of all reading comprehension entries, longest one of the whole bunch. I'm already sweating and my heart is beating fast so this is the last thing I need. I don't even have time to read the entry let alone answer the questions. Against my better judgement, I guessed on the last few questions. I blindly clicked. Princeton Review Verbal Review equals a large bag of panic inducing suck.

Now we have math. Oh boy. 20 questions and 30 minutes. I got the first one with no problem and was feeling good. Then all of the sudden I was in full on I NEED XANAX mode. In the review book you talked about charts and in all of your examples you gave me one chart. The actual test gave me like six of them and I had to extrapolate (I know that word on my own and not with your help) information from all six of them. This took like a lot of minutes and I was only on question 2. At this point I'm scared. Then the next question is complicated also and takes a lot of time. I'm in full panic mode and start feeling high anxiety and I'm worried about a panic attack. Next think I know, I look up and I have two minutes left and I'm on question 15. I now wish to GOD that I broke my rule about number twos because my butt now feels like the Adventures of Frog and Toad. Again, I just have to randomly click answers just so I can finish.

Now, Princeton Review, I'm done and I'm worried. I fear that I didn't get the required score to get into my graduate program. I'm sweating, I have a surly scared sphincter, and I just want to know my score so I can go home. No, that would be too easy. I now have to complete the experimental section so the GRE people can practice future questions on me. I spend the next 20 minutes reading questions and debating whether or not I should just click through these stupid things or if I should actually try and get them right with some hope that the experimental part was a lie and I might be able to make up some ground. The twenty minutes went by very quickly and I was in a daze.

My test was finally complete and my scores popped up and I'll be up front with you Princeton Review. I rocked out Ninja style. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whom you ask, I seem to be an excellent guesser for the first time in my life. I can very honestly say that I did that on my own with ZERO help from you. I laugh in your face and so does my butt. I did okay in spite of all of the late nights trying to remember the definitions for words like antediluvian and impecunious. So here's to my guessing ability I suppose and now I shall do my best to get into my graduate program while doing my best to put an end to your lies of GRE preparation.

Yours in complete knarliness,

Chris R. Noland

Hanging in the Goondocks

I freely admit that getting older is really starting to hit me. Not from a mortality stand point or anything like that, yet, but more from a realization that some of my memories happened a very long time ago. I'm getting to the point that I accept this as a fact of life but it's still strange. We have Sirius-XM in our cars and sometimes I listen to Lithium which is 90's and early 00's alternative. Most of what they play is the soundtrack to my high school and college years. Listening to these songs on the radio again brings forth a severe sense of nostalgia in me and sometimes I love it while sometimes it gets kind of scary.

When I hear Green Day's Basket Case or Longview, Dave Matthews Band's Satellite or Ants Marching, Our Lady Peace's Starseed, or even freaking Lisa Loeb's Stay, I go straight back to 1994-95 driving to Showboat practice at Captain Shreve High School because those were the tapes and cd's that I played incessantly back then. This isn't just a fond memory, I literally feel the spring air blowing through the windows of my little five speed Honda Civic driving down East Kings Highway. Really weird sensation but cool none-the-less. I've found myself actively seeking out a lot of that music that sort of faded into obscurity, or were one-hit-wonders. I miss bands like Trippin' Daisy and the Toadies; Caroline Spine and Sponge; Seven Mary Three and Candlebox; Gin Blossoms and Toad The Wet Sprocket; the Wallflowers and Sublime; Silverchair and Smashing Pumpkins; etc. A lot of these bands are still around in one incarnation or another but man when you see them they look OLD. That's when it hits me a little bit because when I liked them, they were a lot younger than me. I'm not too far away from that whole middle age thing and its trippy. I really don't know if any of this is even making sense, this is sort of a mental vomit session.

The impetus behind this little diddy springs straight out of my nerdy side. I have the testicular fortitude to admit that Cinemagic, the movie soundtrack station is one of my presets on the Sirius-XM dial. I listen to it sometimes when Alt Nation is playing too much Silversun Pickup and Lithium spins a little too much Big Audio Dynamite and Jesus Jones. I hit a trifecta of 80's classic movie scores and they just really took me back in an outstandingly positive way. First up was the Goonies. Several cues were played and one second I was taking a leak in a cave in "The Men's Room," then I was Data being saved by the pinchers of power and then I was using a dagger to slide down the sail of One Eyed Willie's ship. You really start to realize how much these movies meant to our childhood and how much we watched them when just listening to the soundtrack immediately transports you to specific scenes.

The exact same thing happened with the Karate Kid. They played the finale music from the All Valley Tournament and I could picture Daniel Laruso in the Crane form kicking Johnny in the face and everyone going crazy. Even without the picture there, I still got the same exhilaration as I did watching it as a six year old. Movies don't do that anymore and it's a shame. Too many special effects and not enough Crane kicks to the face

Back to the Future was up next and the themes from that movie are just cool. Flux Capacitors, DeLoreans, life jackets, and Crispen Glover start showing up in your head when you hear that trumpet. I really wish I could articulate this better but it's just not meant to be. I didn't get emotional or anything listening to this stuff but man did it make me happy. I highly recommend checking the station out. Sometimes you get a real gem on there that will take you back to your childhood. I should admit that Hoosiers came on too and while that movie is, in my opinion, one of the greatest sports movies ever, there is just too much synthesizer stuff going on. But I digress.

An Open Letter to Tony Horton

Dear Tony Horton: Since I've moved to Charleston, SC, I haven't been in a gym. I tried desperately to make myself run but it's cold outside and I don't like running when it's cold. I caved and decided to try p90x. A neighbor let me borrow the dvd's so I got to work. First day I went out of order on accident and did arms and shoulders. Not a problem. However, the second day started something that I didn't enjoy. Plyometrics. Jump training is apparently not my friend. Before I left Shreveport two months ago, I was in pretty good shape. I was lifting weights regularly and running eight miles. Being 31 years old apparently means I lose my ability to rock much quicker. The non-enjoyment is two fold.

First, I felt like a male cheerleader. I don't meant that to say that I was doing back handsprings and lifting crap over my head. Instead, I was jumping and tucking my knees and then I was jumping and bringing my heels up behind my butt. I no longer felt masculine. I literally felt like a male version of a girl cheerleader. Then I had to get a chair and continuously swing my legs back and forth over it. That was cool until I completely lost my equilibrium and kicked the chair square into my three legged cat. The dude ran off again. Dick. So the process wasn't real enjoyable. Let me also point out that repeatedly telling me that there is a one legged guy doing these exercises with you and if he can do it then I should be able to also. This really demotivates me and it royally pisses off the cat because he certainly can't do it. My cat is missing his leg too and he can do most things that other cats can do but he doesn't get on tv and make others feel bad about it.

Second, I woke up the next day without the ability to walk. Unfortunately, I needed gas in my car so when I drove up to the gas station, I had to use the Oh Shit Bar to pry myself out of the car and then walk all bow legged and pigeon toed inside to pay. I hurt so bad that my wife refused to help me. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I was complaining or the fact that I kept crossing my arms into the giant X every I talked to her, bragging about how EXTREME I was even though I was immobile and propped up in the bed. The pain lasted for three days and I think you suck. I also think you're deceiving everyone. You have yet to finish an exercise. You start it and do like two reps then get up to make sure everyone else is doing it right. I call Shenanigans. I also think you should drink more water. Your veins aren't suppose to pop out that much and I shouldn't be seeing every single muscle fiber in your shoulders. You're one vein SOB. I rock with the puns too.

Awesomely (and by awesome I indeed mean totally sweet),



Chris R. Noland

Tripod's Buried In The Bushes

I admit it, I'm a LOST freak. I didn't mean to do it, it just sort of happened. I had no intentions of ever watching the show. Sometime during the second season though, I got bored and rented the first season on DVD. At 5:30 the next morning, I had it wrapped up and my fanaticism was locked and loaded. We're almost through the sixth and final season and I'm ready to figure out what it's all about. I browse the message boards and read through theory websites. Let's face it, LOST is the next Star Wars for my generation. I am married now so I can freely admit what a choad I am when it comes to nerdy things.

The lovely lady that I'm married to happens to be a veterinarian. That brings with it certain elements and by elements I mean retarded animals. We have a hurricane Katrina rescue dog with ears like an elephant and a penchant for daring yard escapes be it through tunneling, jumping, eating, or opening the door and walking his way out of our little homestead here. We have a pomeranian with missing teeth and a hair loss problem. We cut his hair and it didn't grow back. He looks like an underdeveloped lion with dental issues. Then we have a three legged cat. Let me try to draw you a picture here. Sometimes when he's giving his butt a bath, the one hind leg he has sticks straight up in the air and he has this look in his eye that just beckons you over. Seriously, it makes him look like a real Don Juan. This is the suavest three legged cat you've ever seen. What makes him even cooler is I gave him an accent like Dolph Lundgren, Rocky IV style.

Two extremely random thoughts that are about to converge like head-on locomotives. Stupid tripod ran away and I missed LOST while traipsing through the woods looking for my kitty. Make all the jokes you want. This animal knows the art of stealth. Remember, he's quieter than most animals because he has one less leg to make noise with. Dude is a straight up ninja. I scoured this place for an hour and a half. Looked in every bush and around every tree. I even freaked my neighbor out shining my maglite in her yard from over my fence. Kristen had the foresight to set a can of food out to entice him back in the yard. We were starting to give up hope but I figured I'd give it one last look out in the backyard. I open the door and there he was eating the food. He took one look at me and took off back into some bushes. I saw him this time though and followed him. He was probably in those bushes the whole time because even when I was looking directly at him, he was blending in perfectly, like Zartan.

We were glad to get him back and needless to say, he won't be going outside anymore. He's on my badlist for a while because I can't go scour LOST message boards tonight since I had to miss the stupid thing. That will wait for tomorrow. Being a nerd is awesome.

In A World...

I've had a crazy last ten days or so. Let me go ahead and reiterate why Kristen and I are out here. As I've repeated ad nauseam, we came out here for a do over. Not content with the daily grind and forced into jobs that make us miserable, we pledged that once we got out here, we would both find something that we enjoy. She's at an incredible veterinary hospital right now with bosses and a support staff that is more than she could have asked for. Kristen and job satisfaction/happiness: Check

The pebble in the pond for me so to speak started last week which I wrote about. I emailed Wright Thompson of ESPN and he responded and I was ultimately led to the Post and Courier. I have a foot in the door and now I help out with the sports page for the oldest newspaper in the south. This will hopefully lead towards a writing career for me. Chris on the way to job satisfaction/happiness: Check

As a small aside, I'd like to brag right here that I sent Wright Thompson a thank you email and that son of a bitch gmail chatted me. Yeah he's on my friends list. Eat it.

Most people who know me recognize that I have a fairly deep, articulate voice. When I meet people, I'm often told that I should try and do something with my voice. When we were in Shreveport, I tried and tried to get in touch with people regarding advice and possible ways to break into voice overs. NOBODY returned emails or phone calls. I got out here and made up my mind that I wasn't going to stop trying to make this happen until I exhausted every outlet I could find. I found different voice over artists and sent out email after email. Last week a guy promised me he'd call me and we could talk about it once he was finished with a huge project. I haven't heard from him yet but I'm looking forward to speaking with him.

I randomly sent an email to a man who goes by Zeus (no shit) and ten minutes later I had a reply asking me to call him. He included part of his demo reel and when I listened to it, my jaw hit the floor. He's one of the movie trailer guys, one of the IN A WORLD...guys. He does voice overs for the major networks too. I knew this dude's voice and he was willingto talk to me. I had an errand to run so I grabbed the number and planned on stopping in a parking lot to call (my phone doesn't work for crap here at the house). As I'm about to dial, this guy calls me. Unbelievable. To be frank, he told me the voice over world was almost impossible to break into. Vocally I had the type of voice that could be successful. Professionally, I do not have the background though. He told me that I should try to find some sort of position at a radio station just to get familiar with the environment. That's what I'm trying to do now. Ultimately I have to have a demo tape produced. Zeus told me that he would coach me for free and give me scripts to read and he'd help me make my demo. How awesome is this?

In my email I mentioned that he probably got this type of solicitation quite often. He told me he does but he called me because I mentioned we'd just relocated to Charleston and he lived nearby so he felt compelled to call this time. I explained to him that I'm not scared of the hurdles I've got to cross to get involved in this business. We just uprooted our family and moved out here on a whim. That took guts so I'm not afraid of a challenge. Things really are looking up here. I'm not naive enough to think that I'm going to automatically succeed in a career in voice over but man, this is a fun ride. I've always wanted to write and I've always wanted to talk and I have a foot in the door to both. I'm doing my best to kick that damn door down. Rock on.

The Wright Stuff

Today was a pretty neat day. Forgive the third grade description but I'm exhausted and neat pretty much sums it up. I'm still looking for jobs and I want to find something that I enjoy. Same story, different verse. I'm looking at colleges around town but I've always liked writing and have a Journalism degree to show for it. Ever since high school I've told people that I want to write a humor column a la Dave Barry. If you've never read his stuff, please check him out. He's semi-retired but his voice is terrific and most anyone can relate to what he's written about. Another writer I really enjoy reading is ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine's Wright Thompson. He wrote the piece, Saints Are The Soul of America's City, that everyone linked to on Facebook a couple of months ago. I read a story he wrote about Myron Rolle, the Florida State football player that is also a Rhodes Scholar. At the end of the story, there was an email address for Thompson and I figured what the heck.

I shot him a note asking for some advice on how someone in my situation might course correct onto a bearing toward writing. Not 20 minutes later, he'd emailed me back with a contact and some words of encouragement. That is total class and it could not come at a better time. Even if things don't ultimately plan out, just having that kind of input is enough to restore a great deal of confidence that's been lacking as of late. I'm doing my best to live out the adage that I should take something I enjoy and find a way to make money doing it. Again, nothing is certain at all, but I can at least see a bit of land on the horizon.

Another neat thing happened today. People always tell me that I have a great voice. When I worked for Tim Fletcher at KTBS in Shreveport, he told me I had a voice made for TV and a face made for radio. He also said that in a lecture with a hundred of my peers. He did other not so nice things to me too on camera too. By on camera I mean to be put on the local sports broadcast and not on the tabloids. I've digressed quite a bit. When I lived in Shreveport, I'd call radio stations and other on air talent trying to find out how to get a foot in the door for some sort of voice over work. Never heard one word from anyone and that was always a little frustrating. I'm not necessarily looking for a career but just something cool to try my hand at. I did a google search and randomly came across a guy's website who was a professional voice over artist. I sent him an email explaining how I'd tried and tried to get someone to talk to me to no avail and if he had any advice. He replied this afternoon saying he'd love to talk to me but didn't have my phone number. Send it to him and he'll call me this week and we can chat. Good grief my faith in humanity was restored just a little bit today.

Again, not one single thing could come from this but still it's nice to have these opportunities. I'm not giving up. I'm going to find something I enjoy. Even if it has to be two, three, or four separate things. Kristen and I are excited and are really looking forward to our future. Kudos to optimism.

Mr. Mom

Did you ever see the Michael Keaton classic from the early 80's? Easily one of my favorite movies although nothing will ever, ever beat Real Genius but that's a completely different post. In fact, I could write for days on the quotability and timelessness of that slice of Val Kilmer genius. I bring up Mr. Mom because of the plot line involving the wife going back to work while the husband stays at home. That parallels my situation for the time being while Kristen's working and I'm looking for a job. I am doing my best convincing myself not to grow a beard a la Keaton and by that I mean Kristen is forbidding me to do so. Understandable I suppose but one way or another, I will work a neck beard into my life at some point. If I can't have a super sweet stache (alliterations are awesome), I at least want a neck beard.

I started delivering resume's last week. It's hard looking for a job when you don't know anyone in town and you have to start fresh. Especially when you have such a diverse background as I do. That's a classy way of saying I took a bunch of crappy jobs that did nothing to pave a career. Ever since I left Louisiana Tech, I've been trying to get back on a college campus. Fortunately there are several in the area and hopefully I can catch on with one of them. That is a career that I am genuinely interested in. I think its pretty cliche to say now, but money isn't important to me as long as I'm doing something I enjoy. I've learned that the hard way unfortunately but that's what fresh starts are for.

My dogs are crazy and a little bit special. The snow came down in blankets last night and I figured out that O.D. and Peewee really like to play fetch with snowballs. Peewee would run after them but couldn't seem to find them once they disintegrated on the ground. O.D. would just catch and eat them and get them all over his muzzle. Dude looked like a cross between Santa Clause and Timmy from South Park. You have to know O.D. to really appreciate that.

You Wouldn't Last A Day On The Creek

Do not ever cross James Van Der Beek. Goose Creek might not quite make it to Dawson's Creek standards but it comes close. Actually I have no idea. I've never seen Dawson's Creek. I know a dude who taped every episode and loved the show like a child. He did the same thing with Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Friends. I guess that's cool in a complete antithesis of manly sort of way. I'd certainly never choose to do that sort of thing but to each his own. But I digress.

We now live in Goose Creek, South Carolina. We're about 15 miles north of Charleston. We live in the middle between Charleston and the town that Kristen works in. That way the commute isn't so bad. The verdict is still out on what we think of the town. We live in a great neighborhood that's really a large community made up of several neighborhoods. There's a golf course, several ponds and twenty miles of walking/running trails to explore. That's terrific but truthfully, that's about all there is to this little town. That and potholes. Man, South Carolina roads are worse than Louisiana's and that's a hard thing to admit. Seriously it's an epidemic of Fat Monica from Friends size proportions (I watched the show but never taped it. Get over it). There's another town a few miles away called Summerville that has much more charm for lack of a better word. Lots of old homes and small wooden churches but with a bit more to the actual town. The commute would be the same and again, Charleston is right down the road.

Whenever Kristen and I start feeling stressed or homesick, we drive downtown. I really can't explain it but for some reason it just calms us down and really makes us feel like we belong here. There's an ambiance surrounding it and you can see the history on every block. Kind of a cross between the French Quarter in New Orleans and 19th Century London. I guess you have to see it to understand it. They have all sorts of shops too including a cupcake store that sells nothing but cupcakes. These cupcakes have icing that is six inches high. There are also lots of stores...mostly for snotty people to feel self important. They're fun to go in and look at though. There's a Lacoste store but I just look in the windows and then get mine off of ebay for 1/8 the cost. Most importantly though, downtown has a Mellow Mushroom. That's my favorite pizza/calzone and I almost cried when I found out about it. Okay, I did cry. I cried hard and long with tears of pride and joy and other non hetero sounding words. I love pizza served by hippies man. Something about it just feels groovy. Kristen was impressed...

18 Wheels Of Love

Yeah, I'm pretty much a badass now. I'm a trucker. I drove a 26 ft Penske Truck across five states. Let me tell you what that means. Not only do you pull up to truck stops to fill up with gas, you pull up to the TRUCKER side of the truck stop. You go in the TRUCK ONLY entrance and you fill up with DIESEL. The joke's on you commoners because those big diesel pumps fill a 50 gallon tank in 30 seconds flat...with no spillage. Once I finished with the tank, I pulled up a few feet so some of my new found brethren could pull in and fill up theirs. I swear to you if my wife ever lets me grow a mustache, I'll be bona fide. Truckers get me man. I'm pretty sure they wanted to hangout with me and have arm wrestling matches. I was talking trucker strategy with guys named Buzz, Bull, Grizzly, Cletus and a guy that looked like my old ice cream man named Judd. They kept telling me how cool I was because I had a visor on and they looked up to that. I just let them know that even when a visor is turned backwards, it's like flipping a switch and you go over the top dude. If you don't get that, find out what it means. Then learn it, live it, and love it. I'm thinking of moving from a Penske on up to a Peterbilt but that might have to wait on the mustache. We'll see...

Glad That Part Is Over

It's just now 8:45pm and we've been loading that truck since noon. This truck is gigantic and driving it first thing this morning freaked me out. I'm not used to not being able to see behind me. I made it though and even got the thing backed into the driveway which was a chore because one side of the street has a pretty good ditch.

My parents offered to help load in the morning but I didn't want them doing any heavy lifting. Our good friend Ross Patrick came over and really helped out a ton. We could not have done it without him. My parents came by afterwards and I thought the worst part was over since we had most of the big stuff loaded. I'm absolutely shocked that we got all of the boxes on. My mom and my wife are packing machines. They were perched on top of mattresses in the back of the truck stacking boxes for 2 1/2 hours. We cannot get one more thing in that truck. Real glad we got the 26 footer. Now I just have to drive it to South Carolina.

Kristen, my mom, and my sister are in the living room watching Grey's Anatomy. Dad and I went to grab a sandwich and just talk. I'm really going to miss my family but I'm really excited. Once we get there and unloaded, I should relax.

Winding Down On The Way Back Up

I have to admit, sitting in the middle of packed boxes with empty rooms all around is really making me sad. To make it even worse, there are severe storms all around. To make it totally suck, I'm typing this on my wife's desktop which is possessed by some demonic jerk of some sort. I had completely intended on posting pictures marking our progress but this thing will not let me. I would describe the mounds of boxes and disarrayed furniture but that would be boring and pointless so I will let you use your imagination. Make it something cool...with ninjas.

We had dinner with my parents tonight. Nothing special but a nice little trip to George's Grill. As far as diner food goes, it does not get much better than that. And if I can start my own little Shreveport Civil War, I think their pies are 1000 x's better than Strawns. Beat that with a stick. We are not going to actually say goodbye to my parents until tomorrow night so I'm not too terribly sad but I'm pretty sure I will be. That's okay though. We are so excited about this change.

I pick the truck up at 7:30am tomorrow. I was told to get more boxes from the Penske place. I am not allowed to just stack stuff in the truck, I must have it packed away nicely. Not a problem. I am also going out to Comcast to have the cable turned off so I probably will not be updating until we get out there. Kristen and I are not sure if we're spending the night here tomorrow night on the floor or spending the night with my parents. This could be the last night in our house. As my wife would say, I am a downer debbie.

One Thing After Another

Moving really is overwhelming. So often it feels like you take one step forward and two steps back. I posted last night and set the laptop down without the a/c adapter connected. I woke up this morning to check my email and the computer was acting funny. I called tech support and they told me that basically I needed to reformat my hard drive. That's always great news. Got even better when the reformat failed so tech support (Indian dude named Joe) told me that I'd have to ship it back to the manufacturer so they could take a look. In other words, my hard drive was done. Two laptop hard drives fried in three months. Lookout Apple, the Nolands are coming.

Kristen packed up the dining room today. Between the echos of the hardwood floors and the stacks of boxes by the garage door, it's really starting to hit me. I'm excited about moving on to this new phase of our lives but it's still sad. I've been in this house for almost four years. We've had our battles (oak trees and plumbing) but sometimes its hard to say good bye. I am still absolutely shocked by how much moving away from my parents and sister is affecting me. I have surrendered my man card at least seven times in the last eight days just thinking about things. My wife calls me Susan now which is kind of annoying but dad conditioned me to take it for most of my life.

Tomorrow it continues with lots of items on the checklist including returning the cable modem, taking back library books, etc. All of that in addition to the rest of the packing before finally picking up that big truck that's been haunting my nightmares. The adventure continues...

Overwhelming

Life changing events are afoot. My wife Kristen and I are packing up and leaving Shreveport for the east coast. We are headed to Charleston, South Carolina and hopefully we can document the ups and downs that come with such a big move. To be sure, we are nervous but at the same time incredibly excited and optimistic.

We flew out there a couple of weeks ago and found a house to rent while we get a feel for the area before we settle down and buy. According to Kristen, the house is adorable. According to me, it has a fireplace and a big yard which equals totally sweet. We own our home in Shreveport and have it on the market. We are hoping we can sell it quickly since it's no fun paying rent and a mortgage a thousand miles away.

The actual move is just a couple of days away. We rented a 26 ft Penske truck that I'll be driving across the country. I can't say that I'm remotely excited about it but I will be fine. Just stay out of my way because I have the aviator sunglasses prepped and ready and Maverick will have nothing on me (insert favorite Top Gun quote here...except the one about the need for speed because I'm pretty sure there's a governor on this truck). We were going to tow my car behind the moving truck but I truly was not crazy about the idea. My dad had an airline voucher he had to use so he let me take it. I'm flying back next week to grab my car and drive it over. My wife thinks I'm crazy but I love driving and I have some cd's that I have not gotten the chance to listen to in a long time.

We are stressed but making do. Once we started packing, things started to flow. Just having the entire thing hanging over our heads was the most intimidating part. Right now we're just having fun and looking up pictures and articles on our new home. We cannot wait and hopefully can share a little bit of this journey with anyone who is interested.