My phone broke. It's pretty annoying. It doesn't get service. Sometimes I can get it by turning the phone off and on again and taking out the sim chip and putting it back in and praying to Amen-Ra, but then it just goes out again an hour later. I looked for solutions online, but nothing worked, and I'm loath to spend a year of my life in a help session with a robot or a contractor in Bangalore. I'm just gonna get a new phone. It's time for an upgrade anyway -- unfortunately. I hate upgrading things. I absolutely despise the pressure to constantly get the "latest and greatest" when I'm perfectly happy with my old thing that was the top of the line, like, four years ago. But so it goes. It's Tim Apple's world, and we're forced to live in it.
Well, maybe not "forced," but at least compelled. I thought about going rogue and just not having cell phone service. I can still use a lot of the functionality on my phone without service, provided I have a WiFi connection. All the apps work and I can still receive iPhone-to-iPhone texts and calls. But there are a few crucial things for which I need service, such as the ability to speak with coworkers when I work from home and the GPS map app. I use those two things all the time, and it adversely affects my life to not have them. So, I think a trip to Verizon is on the horizon. In the meantime, here's Andre Rison.
In other news, it was a busy week, since I last posted. We took the boys trick-or-treating, which was a huge success.* I dressed up like Billy Hoyle from White Men Can't Jump. It's one of those costumes where 65% of the population will have no idea who you are, but the other 35% will so appreciate it that it makes up for it. One guy said it was, "the best costume of the night," and this ten-year old boy said, "I know who you are! You're the guy from White Men Can't Jump!" I was amazed he'd even seen the movie. It's almost 20 years older than he is. It was pretty cool.
*Happy belated birthday to my sister K -- sorry, I forgot to reach out on your actual birthday.
My kids went as transformers and got so much candy we hid three-fourths of it after they went to sleep, and they didn't even notice. I've been dipping into it a little bit, but I'm not huge on Halloween candy. Twix are good and Snickers are decent, but I don't like much beyond those two things. I'm a snob when it comes to candy. I like the fancy shit -- See's candies and salted dark chocolate and the like. The typical Halloween stuff -- Skittles, Milky Way, Starbust, etc. -- don't cut it for me anymore. They aren't worth the calories.
The day after Halloween, we dropped the kids off at school, and then hightailed it to Columbus, Ohio -- a seven hour drive -- for our friend R's wedding. We should have just flown. Originally, we were going to bring the boys, and we didn't want to pay $1,500 in airfare, so we didn't buy tickets. But then S's parents agreed to watch them, and for some reason -- inertia, I suppose -- we never reevaluated our decision to drive. We could've saved a lot of time. Oh well.
It's not a terrible drive. It's pretty in a lot of areas, but it's depressing in others, because you drive through these cities that progress forgot. Lots of abandoned shopping centers and run-down buildings and dilapidated homes. When you see swaths of the country like this, you really do understand why so many middle-Americans have so much resentment toward "coastal elites" like myself. Why this resentment manifests in Trumpism and not, say, Bernie Sanders-style redistribution, however, is something I still don't have a good grasp on (or maybe I do: racism). Although, I only saw one "Trump, Pence" sign the entire drive, so I'll consider that a win.
S feels especially unwelcome in such parts of the country given her brown skin. We try to stick to making pit stops in urban (or at least urban-ish) places. That's one nice thing about this country: Even in the reddest of states there are always pockets of blue in the cities. And Ohio is a straight-up red state now. It swapped with Virginia, which, thanks largely to the ever expanding DC suburbs, now has a completely Democrat-majority state government.
A funny thing about S is that she will chalk up every travel inconvenience to being in a different state. We stopped at a gas station, and they had a mini-mart, but no public bathroom.
"What? They don't have a bathroom. That's weird," I said.
"That's Ohio for you!" S responded.
I started chuckling, "Oh, apparently I didn't know that Ohio was known for it's lack of gas station bathrooms."
Anyway, the wedding and the related wedding activities were all really nice. So many friends together in one place -- I love that. The ceremony was one of the best I've ever witnessed. It told the story of how R and her now husband M met. I think R wrote it, and the officiant is an actor, so it was very well-written and well-delivered, funny and heartfelt, not too long nor too short. It was excellent all-around.
The reception was fun also, but the dance floor never really got going until the very end. R and M built the playlist themselves, and they made a fatal mistake (IMHO) of picking music that's fun to listen to and reminisce to, but not good to dance to. Take Billy Joel's Only the Good Die Young for example. That's a perfect song for a bunch of middle-aged, drunk, white people (the primary constituency of this wedding) to sing along with at a bar, but it's a bad song for dancing. Every time the dance floor really picked up for a moment, one of these mood-killing songs would come on, and everybody would leave to go get a drink or mingle. There was no consistency.
The thing is, you just gotta stick to the classics, even if that's not normally your preferred style of music. When I made the playlist for my wedding reception, it was all dance hits people know -- C+C Music Factory, Rob Bass, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Technotronic, Salt-N-Pepa, LMFAO, Black-Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, etc. Most of that is stuff I would never listen to on my own, but it's great for weddings because it gets the party going on the dance floor and that's where the party's at. Toward the end of the reception, another person who was frustrated with the musical selection strong-armed the DJ (who didn't seem to be doing anything at all) into putting on some actual dance music, and everybody got super into it, and it was a fun way to go out.
After the reception, we went to the after party back at the hotel. Unfortunately, we were staying at a different hotel down the street, so we had to bail "early" (around 12:30 am), because S was tired. I could've stayed out all night, but it's just as well. This way I wasn't a slug on the drive home. In fact, I drove the entire way. I told S we would switch when I got tired, but I never got tired. We made it home about as fast as one could make it without risking a reckless driving ticket. There was almost no traffic, and we stopped only once, briefly for gas -- we didn't even get lunch. Neither of us were hungry, probably because we ate (and drank) so much the night before. In fact, other than a small breakfast at the hotel, I didn't eat anything until 8:30 that night.
The boys were safe and happy when we got back, which was great. I hear they are surprisingly easy to manage when we are not around. It's a different story when actually are here, but I'll save that for a different post.
Until next time...
Well, maybe not "forced," but at least compelled. I thought about going rogue and just not having cell phone service. I can still use a lot of the functionality on my phone without service, provided I have a WiFi connection. All the apps work and I can still receive iPhone-to-iPhone texts and calls. But there are a few crucial things for which I need service, such as the ability to speak with coworkers when I work from home and the GPS map app. I use those two things all the time, and it adversely affects my life to not have them. So, I think a trip to Verizon is on the horizon. In the meantime, here's Andre Rison.
[Fun fact: Andre Rison is the only player in NFL history to post 1,000 receiving yards and have his house burned down by his girlfriend in the same year.]
In other news, it was a busy week, since I last posted. We took the boys trick-or-treating, which was a huge success.* I dressed up like Billy Hoyle from White Men Can't Jump. It's one of those costumes where 65% of the population will have no idea who you are, but the other 35% will so appreciate it that it makes up for it. One guy said it was, "the best costume of the night," and this ten-year old boy said, "I know who you are! You're the guy from White Men Can't Jump!" I was amazed he'd even seen the movie. It's almost 20 years older than he is. It was pretty cool.
*Happy belated birthday to my sister K -- sorry, I forgot to reach out on your actual birthday.
My kids went as transformers and got so much candy we hid three-fourths of it after they went to sleep, and they didn't even notice. I've been dipping into it a little bit, but I'm not huge on Halloween candy. Twix are good and Snickers are decent, but I don't like much beyond those two things. I'm a snob when it comes to candy. I like the fancy shit -- See's candies and salted dark chocolate and the like. The typical Halloween stuff -- Skittles, Milky Way, Starbust, etc. -- don't cut it for me anymore. They aren't worth the calories.
The day after Halloween, we dropped the kids off at school, and then hightailed it to Columbus, Ohio -- a seven hour drive -- for our friend R's wedding. We should have just flown. Originally, we were going to bring the boys, and we didn't want to pay $1,500 in airfare, so we didn't buy tickets. But then S's parents agreed to watch them, and for some reason -- inertia, I suppose -- we never reevaluated our decision to drive. We could've saved a lot of time. Oh well.
It's not a terrible drive. It's pretty in a lot of areas, but it's depressing in others, because you drive through these cities that progress forgot. Lots of abandoned shopping centers and run-down buildings and dilapidated homes. When you see swaths of the country like this, you really do understand why so many middle-Americans have so much resentment toward "coastal elites" like myself. Why this resentment manifests in Trumpism and not, say, Bernie Sanders-style redistribution, however, is something I still don't have a good grasp on (or maybe I do: racism). Although, I only saw one "Trump, Pence" sign the entire drive, so I'll consider that a win.
S feels especially unwelcome in such parts of the country given her brown skin. We try to stick to making pit stops in urban (or at least urban-ish) places. That's one nice thing about this country: Even in the reddest of states there are always pockets of blue in the cities. And Ohio is a straight-up red state now. It swapped with Virginia, which, thanks largely to the ever expanding DC suburbs, now has a completely Democrat-majority state government.
A funny thing about S is that she will chalk up every travel inconvenience to being in a different state. We stopped at a gas station, and they had a mini-mart, but no public bathroom.
"What? They don't have a bathroom. That's weird," I said.
"That's Ohio for you!" S responded.
I started chuckling, "Oh, apparently I didn't know that Ohio was known for it's lack of gas station bathrooms."
Anyway, the wedding and the related wedding activities were all really nice. So many friends together in one place -- I love that. The ceremony was one of the best I've ever witnessed. It told the story of how R and her now husband M met. I think R wrote it, and the officiant is an actor, so it was very well-written and well-delivered, funny and heartfelt, not too long nor too short. It was excellent all-around.
The reception was fun also, but the dance floor never really got going until the very end. R and M built the playlist themselves, and they made a fatal mistake (IMHO) of picking music that's fun to listen to and reminisce to, but not good to dance to. Take Billy Joel's Only the Good Die Young for example. That's a perfect song for a bunch of middle-aged, drunk, white people (the primary constituency of this wedding) to sing along with at a bar, but it's a bad song for dancing. Every time the dance floor really picked up for a moment, one of these mood-killing songs would come on, and everybody would leave to go get a drink or mingle. There was no consistency.
The thing is, you just gotta stick to the classics, even if that's not normally your preferred style of music. When I made the playlist for my wedding reception, it was all dance hits people know -- C+C Music Factory, Rob Bass, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Technotronic, Salt-N-Pepa, LMFAO, Black-Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, etc. Most of that is stuff I would never listen to on my own, but it's great for weddings because it gets the party going on the dance floor and that's where the party's at. Toward the end of the reception, another person who was frustrated with the musical selection strong-armed the DJ (who didn't seem to be doing anything at all) into putting on some actual dance music, and everybody got super into it, and it was a fun way to go out.
After the reception, we went to the after party back at the hotel. Unfortunately, we were staying at a different hotel down the street, so we had to bail "early" (around 12:30 am), because S was tired. I could've stayed out all night, but it's just as well. This way I wasn't a slug on the drive home. In fact, I drove the entire way. I told S we would switch when I got tired, but I never got tired. We made it home about as fast as one could make it without risking a reckless driving ticket. There was almost no traffic, and we stopped only once, briefly for gas -- we didn't even get lunch. Neither of us were hungry, probably because we ate (and drank) so much the night before. In fact, other than a small breakfast at the hotel, I didn't eat anything until 8:30 that night.
The boys were safe and happy when we got back, which was great. I hear they are surprisingly easy to manage when we are not around. It's a different story when actually are here, but I'll save that for a different post.
Until next time...
Thanks for the bday shout out. I was completely uninterested in it myself this year--I guess 45 is past my threshold for excitement about birthdays. Maybe I'll be up for a big 50th party though.
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