Maybe My Dad Hid the Puzzle Piece

Do you attribute unexplained, Earthly experiences to dead people?

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A little while ago a friend of mine’s mother passed away, and much like many things in the lives of people we know these days, I found out about it on Facebook. I felt for him as you could feel his grief in his postings, but you could also see the love around him to help him through.

His grief reminded me a little of when my mom passed away back in 2008 and the love of the people around me who helped me through, especially my then girlfriend and now wife, but as this passing occurred near June 6th, what would be my father’s birthday were he still alive, I had also been thinking of my dad a lot. With those thoughts floating around my head, an incident happened that really solidified my dad continuing to influence things around me, maybe even from beyond the grave. Continue reading Maybe My Dad Hid the Puzzle Piece

Where Was Your Flag on the 4th of July?

Where was your flag on the 4th of July?

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I’m not a bad American. I love this country. I’m just a bad rememberer. The thing is that on the 4th of July the reminders were everywhere so how I forget remains a mystery. One of my friends posted on Facebook how she went for a five mile run and was sad because there were so few flags being flown, other people were sharing pictures of flags, taking pictures of flags, changing their profile pictures to flags, and the night before my wife said, “You didn’t put out the flag.” I replied, “That’s because it’s not the 4th of July, yet. I’ll put it out tomorrow.” I said this with all of the conviction in the world, confident in my ability to remember the next day to fly our flag.

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The Challenge of the Dust Collector

I suppose I got it from my father. I’m not talking about my wonderful good looks, nor my nose, but my love of knick-knacks. You know knick-knacks? If you type “knick-knack” into Google you get: “a small worthless object, especially a household ornament,” with wonderful synonyms like: “trinket, novelty, gewgaw, bibelot, ornament, trifle, bauble, gimcrack, curio, tchotchke, memento, souvenir, kickshaw.” My wife simply calls them dust collectors, so I guess, I’m a dust collector, although looking at the synonyms I’m thinking of shifting to calling them bibelot if only because then it sounds fancy.

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A New Watch Every Few Years?

Are You Considering Buying the Apple Watch?

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It’s almost here. It’s almost time. The world, and our lives, is about to change. Why? Because the Apple Watch is almost on sale. Fine, there hasn’t been an official launch date, there is finally an official Apple “Special Event” titled “Spring Forward” that will most likely showcase the watch, and other than some articles about possible pricing, some sightings of it out in the wild, and the general rumors that seem to come around any Apple release, we still don’t know anything official about it except, that, in the world of watches, unlike the watch that you might receive as a graduation gift, an anniversary gift, a birthday, you know, the watch you will cherish for the rest of your life, the Apple Watch will actually have a shelf life. Watches in the past were mechanical, or even if digital maybe you would just need to change a battery, and there are people who still have a wind-up watch handed down for generations. The Apple Watch, on the other hand, is technology, and like all technology has a shelf life.

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He Couldn’t Ring Dem Bells

I found myself in a bell tower. I won’t go into when I found myself in a bell tower because then the story would probably be worse, but there I was. I was led to the door to the bell tower, but we thought the door was locked. The 15-year old in this 47-year old body really wanted to go into the bell tower, but alas, it appeared a little lock was there between normal-ness and adventure. Oh well. Then an opportunity came for me to be by that door again, and low and behold the lock wasn’t really locked, I opened the door and found myself, alone, climbing the stairs. But I was torn. In my head I knew I shouldn’t really be there, the initial stairs were kind of rickety, but I continued to climb. I made it to the first level, looked up the next set of stairs, and somehow continued going up.

Then thoughts entered my head.

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Out in Less Than One Day

As a Catholic and a Polish dude I was preparing for Lent. Paczki were ordered, and I began pondering the Lenten season. For years we are always told we should give something up until Easter, although the rules were always a little shady as sometimes we were told we were able to have on Sundays what we gave up, other times there was the spirit of “fasting” for the entire season. One year I did great, giving up adding sweetener, both artificial and natural, into things, specifically my iced tea and coffee. Somehow I made it through the season although I did pick up the diet soda after Easter. This season, though, I had a plan. I was going to add some things which I know kind of goes against the theory of Lent, but I felt trying to consistently do my yoga, meditation, and exercising for the season would make me a better person, but on the giving up something I went back to the old standard, giving up soda.

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One Staple of College I Seem to Suck At

I have an Aerospace Engineering degree from Illinois Institute of Technology, I have made some iPhone apps, I can, or at least used to be able to play the violin, and I can cook an awesome steak, but why is it when it comes to the staple of college students everywhere, something I never actually made when I was in college, I find that I somehow suck at making Maruchan’s Ramen Noodle Soup. The discovery came a little while back when, at the request of my wife when she wasn’t feeling well, she requested I make her a bowl of soup. My immediate thought was some Lipton Cup-o-Soup, but for her she wanted Ramen Noodles.

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Lassie, Did Timmy Fall in the Well?

It happened the other day. There was some candy on the counter, a bag of candy as it would be, and I was pretty sure my wife wasn’t keeping count of the number of pieces in the bag. She wasn’t home yet, but Milo was there. He did his normal greeting of lying in his bed, looking towards the door as I opened it, had a gaze of “Do I know you?”, and as I came a little closer he lifted his head a little higher, let his nose do some sniffing, and, when finally realizing it was me, he spun around a little bit then headed down to his litter box to do his business.

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Table Cleaning and You

This past weekend I came to fully realize that I married into a family of table cleaners. Now I’m not just talking a family of table straighten-uppers, but if you gave them a cleaning rag as part of the meal you could probably just set the table right after they left and it would be cleaner than the job you would do as a waiter/waitress/buss boy/buss girl.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Mr. Slob when it comes to going out to eat or being at a relatives for a holiday dinner. When I’m done with my meal I will take my plate, and offer to take a plate or two when I’m at a family gathering, and if I’m at a restaurant I will try to neaten up my area, leaving things in a manner kind of nice for the wait staff to be able to clean, but, especially at a restaurant, I’m not trying to make the table ready for the next customer. My in-law family, however, is a server’s dream because as the meal is done there they are stacking plates, collecting silverware, tidying up the area, and never was it more prevalent than at the funeral luncheon I was at over the weekend.

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Only 68 Days Left

The man is on the TV spouting how we should get our billions back, the people are on the side of the road in their Statue of Liberty costumes asking you to come on in, and companies are supposed to have sent you your tax forms by now. Yup, it’s tax season. It’s the time of year when some people will go “Shit, I owe how much?”, others will be cheering because they are getting a giant refund and can go buy that new TV, and others will be proud of the fact that they owe, or will get refunded, next to nothing which means they didn’t give the government a loan with their money.  There will be stories, especially come March, how taxes are a clustur-f&^* of complicated rules that only a tax accountant might be able to understand, as more candidates hit the trail many will give the familiar rhetoric about tax reform, easier tax filing, how the rich should pay more, yet for the most part the tax rules will just become more complicated, and the rich will still figure out loopholes left by the same politicians who said they will get rid of them, and in the end, April 15th will show up, a deadline everyone knows is there, and some people, probably the same people who crammed for a final exam the night before, will scramble to get their taxes filed on time.

I’ve filed my taxes crazy early, I’ve been on that cusp of April 15th, but with it being early February I wonder: Have you filed your taxes yet?

That’s it for this one! L8R!!