Blog de Cullen

Muffin Face

2009-09-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Well, an entire summer has come and gone and I am fuckin' back, baby. If you thought I died, well, I didn't. I was just busy livin'.

Tonight was softball game #5 of the new season. We play fall ball here in the Boston area well into October. Our team, the Somerville Orange Stockings (or O-Sox if you want to shorten it) had a game tonight out at Chelsea High School. We don't usually play there and to be honest the only reason I would ever step foot in Chelsea, other than to play a softball game, would be if I needed a discount on tires or a checked cash on the spot. It has been no secret that my biggest complaint with playing softball is the competition, or lack of. We play 70% of our games against teams that would fare no better if they stepped up to bat swinging a severed monkey tail. And don't get me started on how bad they are at fielding. You put Stephen Hawking on 3rd and we have a harder time getting on base.

Well tonight we got to play a good team for a change. It was great, even if I suffered the worst humility I have suffered since I accidentally gave an ex-girlfriend a Valentine's Day card that said "Happy Valentine's Day, Mom". (true story, back in 1999, I didn't get lucky that night either). Going into tonight's game, I was 16 of 16 - batting a perfect 1.000. If you go back to last season I was 22 of my last 22. I've never considered myself a very good hitter, so this was rare air I was breathing, and fuck me if I didn't like it. Every time I got in the batters box I was certain I was getting a hit. I had stopped swinging for the fences and started focusing on hitting grounders, which baring a fantastic play, I am usually able to leg out. Well tonight, I take a few pitches and run the count to 3-2. Next pitch looks low. Nope, strike 3. I'm walking back to the bench with my cock in my hand not knowing if I'll ever be able to show my face in public again. There isn't much you can say after looking at Strike 3 except "Yes, I owe a 30-pack - would you like Schlitz or Golden Anniversary (do they still make that crap)?"

My next at bat I went back to base hitting. And boy was it worth it. I rounded first base and noticed that the center fielder didn't play it cleanly so I was headed for second. I knew it was going to be a close play. I slide - safe. The second basemen, a woman in tight spandex tried to tag me out, apparently by sticking her muff in my face. And I didn't even have to pay anything!

Next inning our shortstop, Josh, makes an incredible diving catch and doubles up the runner on second. I could tell it was a satisfying play, because the inning before Josh had a ball go right off the tip of his glove on a similar play. I heard him mutter on the bench, "If I were two inches taller....I blame my mother for that". That got me thinking. I blame my mother for my inability to dance - she didn't listen to enough R&B growing up.

We end up playing solid defense down the stretch and win a thriller 13-12. I'll trade the strikeout for the victory, even if it means I'm going to have to sit down to pee tomorrow morning, and maybe the morning after that.

After the game I stopped at my second favorite pizza place in Harvard Square, Pinnocchio's. (Are those hookers out front? You tell me.)

It is a whole in the wall, but they make good pizza. It also allows me to drive through Harvard Square playing another fun game that I like to play that involves me not yielding to pedestrians. NOTE TO ALL PEDESTRIANS: If I have a green light, and you don't have the little man telling you it is OK to walk, I will not yield. In fact, I will make an attempt to scare you so bad that by the time you get to the other side of the street, you have a little piece of poo sitting in your underpants. If you are going to jaywalk, put a little fuckin' hop in your step and make it across the street in under 10 seconds. Run like you are about to be run down.

Anyways, I came close to 4 pedestrians (by close I mean within 10 feet), which is not a record for me, but it is enough to put a smile on my face. One of them was in a wheelchair too! (bonus points).

So I know what all of you are thinking. Why blog now you son-of-a-bitch? After taking 3 months off, you expect us to read your drivel now? Well, yes and no. No, I don't expect anyone to read except those who have reminded me that I haven't blogged yet this quarter (Kris, Josh). Considering some of the shit I find myself reading on the internet, I suppose this is no worse. Am I going to promise to make regular blog posts? Of course not, I don't make promises I cannot keep. But I will promise you that I will try, and that is the best you are going to get.

GMR

2009-06-23T18:16:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the Green Mountain Relay. The Green Mountain Relay is a 200-mile relay race from Jeffersonville, Vermont to North Bennington, Vermont with the majority of it being run on scenic Route 100. I was running as part of team of 8 people.

Friday night we met up and left at about 7.30pm, hoping to make it to South Burlington by 11ish, where we would be spending the night, getting up at 5am for a 6.30 race start. At about 8.30, about 20 miles into my trip, the transmission on my car went to hell. I was no longer able to drive 75mph - my car was only able to go about 40 mph, and was shaking violently. This was not good. I threw the hazards on and was able to get off at the next exit and call the other two drivers to explain my situation. One of the other cars was ahead of me on the highway and was able to turn around and pick up my third passenger. Gina and I would attempt to drive my car home. Well, fortunately for the O/D button (drive override), I was able to make it home driving in 4th gear. 5th gear didn't work and at low speeds, the car would shake. So, we made it back to Boston, hopped in Gina's car and made it up to South Burlington at 1.30AM. It was going to be a long weekend.

After 3 hours of sleep on a hotel floor, I wiped the dried spunk out of my eyes, got a few minutes in the bathroom, and was off for a 45 minute drive to Jeffersonville, Vermont to begin the relay. I would be running 5 legs: Leg #3 (7.9 miles) would be run at about 8AM Saturday, followed by Leg #11 (9.9 miles) at 4PM on Saturday, followed by Leg #19 (6.6 miles) at 10PM on Saturday, followed by Leg #27 (4.4 miles) at 4AM Sunday, with my last leg #35 (4.7 miles) at 10AM on Sunday. I got 0 hours of sleep on Saturday, and one shitty hour of van sleep on Sunday at about 7-8AM. Overall, our team did pretty well, and I was happy with my times considering my lack of serious training. (Averaged about a 7:10 mile for 33 miles which included a slow last leg where I paced an ultra team that we became friends with after running the first 150 miles with them).

The hardest thing about the race was doing it on a lack of sleep. There was only one stretch in Leg #27 (my 4th leg) that I had significant pain, and that was when I first got passed and tried to stay with the guy. He was running close to a 6.30 mile I think, and at that point I was not going to be keeping up with him. Other than the fact that I now have to deal with a broken transmission, it was a very enjoyable weekend. (If anyone wants to steal my car, I'll leave the keys in it with a full tank. Just make sure I don't find it).

Here are some pictures:

This is a bowl of soup I purchased at Exchange #6 near Stowe at the Green Mountain Coffee Visitor Center. I thought I was able to eat this bowl of soup in the back of a moving van on bumpy roads. I failed miserably. (Mushroom Barley, in case you were wondering).

This bear died of natural causes. Gunshot.

This is a nice looking barn.

This is taken from the bridge that is at the base of the Killington Skyeship (gondola) that crosses Rt-100. Taken at sundown. That car was clocked at 126mph!

2009-06-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was my 15th high school reunion. I didn't go. We didn't have a 5-year or 10-year reunion, so this would have been my first chance to reconnect with some of my old classmates. I have stayed in contact with a few, and thanks to Facebook, I am up to date with the mundane details of many of their lives. I only graduated with 85 or so people. What would you answer if I asked you what the chances are of one of my former classmates having a sex change? If you answered "100 %", you'd be correct. This seemed to have been the highlight of the night. I mean, how do you top this?

Instead of going to a class reunion, I celebrated Greg's dad's 60th birthday party. One of the better gifts he got was this blow up doll. The dog had a real go with her, and we didn't even stuff pulled pork up her rear end like we wanted to.

This coming weekend is the big relay race up in Vermont. I am on a team with 7 others and we basically have to run the entire length of Vermont - 200 miles. I am in charge of running 5 legs totaling 33 miles. It is going to be interesting, considering the farthest I've run in the last 6 months is 9 miles.

2009-06-09T17:45:00.001-07:00

It has been nearly three weeks since I last updated my blog and I have recently taken some heat for it. Last week I logged on and wrote some stuff, but got side tracked and ended up having a 4th beer instead. Tonight I had one beer. Now I'm having a little bourbon (Eagle Rare).

What have I been up to in the last week? Well, two weeks ago Gina and I went up to New Hampshire and did some camping and hiking. We also drove up to the top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire where I got a chance to play with my new camera. The temperature up top was 34 degrees, with a 60 mph wind. This is a picture of the train coming up the mountain. If you look real closely, you can see the train conductor text messaging.

Gina and I like to play a little game when we drive around northern New England. Well, I guess I wouldn't call it a game. We look for moose. Sometimes we look for bear too. I've only seen a moose once and it was up in Maine when I was 12. Well, on the way home from New Hampshire two weeks ago I saw my first bear. He was in between I-93 N and I-93 S and looked a little like this:

Last week, our softball team suffered our first loss of the season, 14-13. I spent a few innings coaching third base, which is ironic because I usually don't know how many outs there are which makes me one of the least qualified people to coach third base. But, I coach third base a lot, because it makes me feel like I am a coach and I've always deep down wanted to be a coach of something. Also, it increases my chances by 90% of taking a line-drive to the nut-sack and that would surely give me some good blogging material. I noticed two things while coaching third base last week. 1) We can't approach the good teams the same way we do the bad. While we can run all day on the bad teams, the good teams actually have players capable of making plays. This is especially true with less than two outs. 2) If this were our pitcher, we would probably average more than 0.8 fans/game:

This past weekend I did some running. I ran 9 miles on Friday night, 7 miles on Saturday morning, and another 9 miles on Sunday afternoon. The hardest one was on Sunday, both physically and emotionally. Physically I was tired from the two previous days. I had also eaten a pork sandwich (from Hi-Rise Bakery) about three hours prior. The sandwich is called a Nat Queen Cool and is my new favorite. Anyways, it was sitting in my stomach and I almost lost it. At mile 7, I came across an injured baby rabbit. It looked to have gotten hit by a bicycle and was suffering on the bike path. It was clearly going to die. I moved it to the side, and then decided to put it out of it's misery by stomping on it 3 times. It was pretty gross, and didn't make me feel to good.

Speaking of not making me feel too good, I saw this band in Copenhagen in 1998. Do any of you know who it is? Whoever can name them first can pick my next blog topic.

Get Down! No just kidding, you can eat that.

2009-05-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

Fisher has recently taken a liking to people food. I realize that it is a bad habit to give animals people food. I typically don't make it a habit of giving other peoples pets people food, or wild animals either. But Fisher is small, and when he becomes annoying, it is easy to lock him in a room. It is also interesting to see the different things that he will eat versus what he won't. For instance, he loves chips (especially tortilla), but he doesn't really like beer (import or domestic).

Not surprisingly, he likes meats and cheeses. But, he also likes broccali, salted nuts, bread pudding. I never would have thought he would eat bread pudding, which is why I didn't think twice about leaving a piece out one morning when I went to take a shower.

I was pissed about this one, and after I put the camera away I gave him a beating he didn't soon forget. I swear, that Gatorade was almost full too!

Gina isn't very happy about all the people food I give the cat. She says it isn't good for him. She told me once, "Do you want him to have a heart attack?". After I got done laughing, I told her "No, cats can't have heart attacks silly." But, I don't want him to live forever either. My mom has a cat, Orbit, who is going to be 22 years old in September. That is too old for a cat that has never had a run in with John Coffey.

Orbit is deaf, near blind, and I have no doubt it will live another 2-5 years. That is why I am going to try and feed Fisher foods that will allow him to live 8-12 years, a fine life span for a cat.

Have you seen my vacuum?

2009-05-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I find unfortunate about Corporate America is that it is frowned upon to write on the wall in the bathroom stalls. Often times when I am sitting on the can, staring at the floor, I reminisce about college and the funny little things that would take up the time. I can still remember some of these lines. "Flush twice, it's a long way to the kitchen" was a good one. There was also someone who identified themselves as "The Bathroom Poet" who wrote some very catchy poems. At one point during my freshman year, there was a dorm controversy in which someone stole the vacuum cleaner from our janitor, Juan. Someone drew a very accurate caricature of Juan on the wall with a blurb, "Have you seen my vacuum?". It's unfortunate that this type of behavior needs to end in college.

Last night was our first softball game of the year. We won, although I have no idea what the final score was. I don't take the games very seriously until the playoffs. Even then, I don't take them that seriously, I just start paying attention more to things like how many outs there.

Weekend Recap

2009-05-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

I got home Friday after work at about 6pm. Gina walked in the door about 2 minutes after I did and snapped, "Why didn't you answer your phone?" I did not have a good excuse except that I still had it on silent mode (from work) and soon realized that my stupidity caused her to not pickup pizza from our favorite pizza place, Pinocchio's. "No big deal," I said. "We can go down there now". This would give me an opportunity to play around with my new camera that I purchased last week, my first digital SLR (Nikon D5000).

Two minutes into our walk, it became obvious that Gina had another beef. She informed me she couldn't find her Charlie Card which still had a balance of $50 on it. For those of you unfamiliar with the Charlie Card, it is the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's (MBTA) answer to subway tokens.

You put money on the card and it is deducted every time you ride the T. Soon after I started my new job, I realized that it was easier for me to drive to work. At the time, I had a Charlie Card with a value of about $80. I sold this card to Gina (we keep a running tab). Well, due to the fact that I drop her off at work every morning now, and have saved her countless hours riding the #1 bus, she has been unable to go through the $80 . In fact, given the fact she still has $50 on the pass, I'm calculating she's only ridden the bus about 20 times in the last 3-4 months. Well, Gina was mad at me because she lost the card I made her buy. Sometimes I am such an asshole.

After we got back and finished our pizza we combined all of our money, which turned out to be $6. This would be enough to get us a large frozen yogurt from Berry Line, which opened it's second location this past week literally about a 90 second walk from us. It has been open 5 days, and already we have been 3 times. In fact, I'm thinking of going there as soon as I post this message.

It could be a very delicious summer.

The rest of the weekend included me running 17 miles, blowing my nose every other minute (bad allergies), walking around taking pictures with my new camera, watching SNLs latest Digital Short several times (www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/digital-short-motherlover/1099491/), buying a cheap charcoal grill, and coming to grips with the fact that Fisher is not nearly as cute of a cat now as he was as a kitten.

Kitten

Cat

CPI

2009-05-01T16:27:00.000-07:00

So I just got of the phone with my grandmother. I talk to her once or twice a week. She is usually good for saying one or two things that make me think, "Jesus, I am glad I am not an 85 year old lady". When I talk to her, I try to play devil's advocate with whatever she is saying. I find it usually makes for a more entertaining conversation.

Tonight she told me about how many times she played bridge this week. Then she asked me what I was doing for dinner. The conversation led to her telling me how much groceries cost these days. When you're talking to an 85 year old, you have to be very careful with the term "these days". For all I know, she could be referring to the period 1982-2008. I asked her to be more specific. "What do you mean these days?". "Well, in the last two years". So I told her I thought she was full of crap. I logged onto the Bureau of Labor Statistics website to try and dispel her theory by looking at CPI stats. For the record, she is right, things are more expensive than May of 2008, but the logic she uses is because the orange she bought at the grocery store today was 95 cents instead of 50. I told her to give me another example. She started talking about blueberries and apples. It's nice to see that she is eating so much fruit.

Then we started talking about our backpacking trip to Montana. She doesn't understand the term "backpacking" so I had to be very specific in describing what we were going to do. This led to "Are you going to be able to buy food there?". "No Grandma, we are going to have to cook for ourselves." "Over a campfire?", she asked. "No, we'll be bringing a stove". "YOU ARE GOING TO BRING A STOVE?". I think that for a split second she thought I'd have a regular sized oven strapped to my back.

The conversation then turned to fishing. Specifically, would I be doing any fishing out there? "No, I don't like to fish", I told her. "Me either", she said. "Well maybe you should consider it", I told her "it sounds like you could use a little supplemental income". She said she would rather starve.

Speaking of starving, Gina is down in New Jersey this weekend and I am starving, which means I need to get up off my duff and go get a burger. I am glad the Bruins are on tonight. Against my former team, The Whale.

La Influenza

2009-04-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, the fact that we are on the verge of a flu pandemic fascinates me. I have done some reading on other pandemics, most recently the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. I don't think it is entirely fair to blame the Spaniards for all those deaths. Had they known the benefits of regular hand washing, far less people would have died. Today at my office, a note was posted in the bathroom instructing us how to wash our hands properly. For the last 30 years, I have been doing this incorrectly. If I've inadvertently gotten you sick over this time because of my stupidity, well, I'm sorry. In addition to a step-by-step guide informing me how to sterilize my hands, our bathroom also has a big bottle of Purell between the two sinks. It looks like this:

Not to be confused with Prell, which is only effective on the germs that hide out in the scalp.

I am not very worried about catching the flu. While I don't consider myself to be a terrible clean individual, I have not had flu-like symptoms since June of 1998 and that was only for about 36 hours. I was traveling in Europe on a train from Barcelona, Spain to Interlaken, Switzerland. I was with two friends and our train had stopped in Geneva. It was 8am and I felt really bad. By noon, when we arrived in Interlaken, I knew that bad shit was about to go down. As I slept on the front lawn of the grocery store, while they went in to shop for laks and Toblerones, I decided that I was going to bungee jump that afternoon even if it killed me. By 4pm, when we were picked up by the outfit that ran the bungee jumping, I was hoping that in fact it would kill me. That's how sick I was. On the van ride out to the the mountain, I puked all over myself and that is why in this picture, I am wearing a vest, with no undershirt. If you were able to check my underpants, I think you would find them a mess as well.

My two friends gave me crap for being a "downer" that afternoon. That night they caught what I had though, and for that I will always remain grateful. It was the sickest I've ever felt.

2009-04-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

Gina and I went hiking this morning. 7 miles in the Fells. It is a pretty difficult trail for running on, but not bad for hiking. She has terrible blisters now on her feet. About a 1/3 of the way into the hike she started complaining about her shoes. I told her that her shoes suck and that she needs to get a different pair. She defends her shoes like I am critisizing a person. She told me that the shoes are fine. "Not if they make your feet blister, they're not".

I am going to head back to the Fells in about 30 minutes to bike. It is really nice out. Tomorrow I plan on heading up to New Hampshire and hiking up and snowboarding down Waterville Valley. The mountain closed weeks ago, but I think they still have snow on the trails. It will be interesting snowboarding in 80 degree temps.

2009-04-23T17:56:00.000-07:00

This has been a pretty boring/slow week. Aside from taking Patriots Day off, I've done absolutely nothing. The crap weather hasn't really inspired me to go out and run.

Tuesday night I got home from work and made a few phone calls. First I talked to my grandmother. I call her about once a week, sometimes twice if she's lucky. She didn't have any thing new to tell me and I didn't have anything new to tell her. Tuesday was the day that they caught the Craigslist Killer. Because the guy is from Boston, it automatically became a topic for discussion. My grandmother asked me if I was worried. "About what?", I asked. It's unbelievable. She told me that when the police caught him he was on his way to Connecticut.

Then I talked to my mom. The exact same conversation. "Isn't that scary?" my mom asked. "No mom, it's not". And do you know why it's not scary? BECAUSE I AM NOT GIVING EROTIC MASSAGES IN HOTEL ROOMS. I hope this guy goes away for a long long time for making me have this ridiculous conversation twice in one night.

My Full Endorsement

2009-04-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

This morning I stopped at Target on my way into work. One of the great things about not taking the train is that if I am ahead of schedule, I can stop and run errands in the morning. Tomorrow I might stop at the car wash and vacuum out the inside of my vehicle. I ended up buying 18 20-oz. bottles of Vitamin Water and a big can of coffee (Choc Full O'Nuts). I never drank a Vitamin water until about a month ago and now I drink them all the time. If you had told me two months ago that I wouldn't be drinking Gatorade anymore, I would have called you a heretic, but after that first sip of Dragonfruit (Power-C), I was hooked.

Other products I fully endorse: Cottonelle Toilet Paper, Brooks running socks, & Reddi Wip Whippets.

This weekend will be the first one I have spent in Boston since December 13th. That is 17 consecutive weekends spent away. Saturday I plan on going mountain biking and might follow that up with some tequila drinking. I'm also looking for a good bike to ride around the city so I might go bike shopping. My goal for the summer is to get into good biking shape. Last summer I only rode twice. Another goal is to get in good tequila drinking shape. I didn't do too much of that last summer either. Some might say last summer was a failure for me, but I did other things, so it wasn't all bad. Bill gave me a bottle of some tequila called Corzo this weekend (750ml). I've never had it, but it looks delicious. Monday will be my first day off since starting the job back in December.

Outdoorman's Paradise

2009-04-13T19:37:00.001-07:00

This weekend Gina and I wend down to Connecticut for Easter and for Scarlett's first birthday. Saturday was terrible weather, very rainy all day. Gina and I went for a ride with my dad, Donna (step-mom) and little sister and stopped at Cabela's over near the UConn football stadium. I had never been and my dad told me it is a must see. It is a massive outdoors store with entire wings devoted to hunting, fishing, camping, & bbq. There were a lot of NASCAR fans there too. Anyway, I happened to stumble into the Bargain Cave and came real real close to buying a couple of stuffed horned stuffed rabbits facing each other on a mounted frame. It was $97, marked down from $200. The label said "damaged", but it looked in perfect condition to me. I am very much regretting not buying it - would have totally made my cube. Had my dad not been with me, I probably would have gotten it. He thought it was funny, but would have punched me in the face if I spent $97 on two stuffed rabbits (even if they did have antlers coming out of their heads).

After Cabela's, we went to LL Bean (to pick up a chair) and then to Panera Bread (for some lunch). We also saw a dead turkey in the street that had gotten run over multiple times. It was big and gross.

Yesterday, we went down to Westport for Scarlett's birthday. Carrie fed her a cupcake the size of her head. I think she liked it.

The ride back to Boston sucked. It took three hours and we didn't get home until 11 (usually takes 2, but I've done it in 1:45 driving 85 mph for the whole Mass Pike). We tried to cheat by getting off an exit in Sturbridge and taking a secondary road for 10 miles. We maybe saved 15 minutes, but they got stuck in toll traffic again heading into the city. Motherfucker! That's what I said when I saw the line of cars stopped 5 miles before the toll. Fisher was on my lap. I'm sure he was thinking the same thing.

Today I ran 6-7 miles after work and just made a nice fruit salad. Pineapple, melon, & strawberries. Those are the fruits I usually use. Pineapple & strawberries are my favorite.

A little richer

2009-04-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

So I just walked into the bedroom after winning $109 betting on women's college basketball (hey, at least it's not the WNBA) to find Gina crying on the bed. Why? Because she is watching Marley & Me. She has been talking about it for months now and got the chance to pick it up tonight. We drove over to Whole Foods to pick up some fruit and yogurt. I have been eating those greek yogurts lately, the ones with the fruit on the side. They are delicious. My favorite ones are the ones with honey. How much do I like them? Last night there was one left in the fridge and it had an expiration date of 3/30 and I still ate it. And I am very picky about eating food past the due date. Of course, I gave some of it to Fisher first just to make sure it wouldn't make me sick.

We actually brought Fisher to the store with us. He likes riding in the car, so we brought him and he sits in the car and looks at people when we go in the store.

Tonight I went running along the Charles River. I did about 6.5 miles. I don't have anything too big coming up. There is a 12 mile trail race that I'm doing in early May, but I'm not that worried about running fast, so I might just treat it as a training run. Then in mid-June I am doing the Green Mountain Relay which is a 200 mile race in Vermont. There are 8 or 9 of us on the team, so I only need to run 4 legs of 5-6 miles each - which I could probably do now if I had to. Anyway, tonight was the first time in probably 2 or 3 years where I was actually passed by another runner when running. It was very humbling. Two runner looking guys. I was running about a 7:00 pace into a headwind, so it definitely caught me off guard.

Today was opening day. I would have hated to be at the game. It is too cold for baseball. I can deal with cold baseball when it is October and means something, but not this time of year. If it weren't for fantasy baseball, I probably wouldn't even start paying attention until Memorial Day.

Ok. That is two posts in two days.

Iceland or Montana?

2009-04-06T17:51:00.000-07:00

Ski season is over for me. Yesterday we packed up and cleaned the house and got our security deposit back. Dave gave it back to us in all $50 dollar bills. Dave was our landlord and had a drinking problem. We watched him fall on several occasions this winter. When I said "bye" to him he appeared to have food all over his face, as if he ate a bowl of macaroni and cheese w/o a fork. Poor guy. He treated us well. Hopefully we're back next winter.

The highlight of the winter came two weeks ago when we were given permission by Dave to have a brush fire in his back yard. He even suggested we use gasoline. We obliged being the good tenants that we were. Here is a video of that evening. I suggest watching it start to finish, even though the explosion doesn't take place until just past the 3:00 mark.

I know it has been some time since I last blogged. At one point Gina asked me why I wasn't blogging and I alluded that I was blogging on a different site about her, and not telling her about it. She said it was "grounds for dismissal". That is how she talks to me. I wasn't blogging on a different site though. Good thing.

We are trying to decide where to go on vacation this summer. Our choices seem to be narrowed down to Iceland or Montana. Iceland would be a much more expensive trip, so we're leaning towards Montana. We're talking about a 4-5 day backpacking trip in Glacier National Park. Gina is concerned about bears though, specifically being eaten by one. We may be picking up one of these bear suits.

Fisher is doing okay these days in case you were wondering. He got kicked pretty hard last week, around 3.30am-ish, when he decided to attack my feet. Sometimes he sits on the dresser and stares at me in the middle of the night. He is a little weasel.

I am going to go watch the NCAA championship now. I am going to try and update this with some regularity. I've received multiple complaints about my lack of posts.

2009-03-05T18:26:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting on my ass drinking a Sierra Nevada Wet Hop beer. It's freakin' delicious.

This is the first weekend all winter that I will not be heading to the great white north. Eleven weekends in a row, and now the streak ends. I still have some moderate stiffness in my neck, plus they are picking up rain tomorrow and then freezing rain on Sunday. No thanks.

Instead, Gina, Fisher, & I are going to head down to CT. I really would like to give the cat a bath tonight, but I'm being told not to.

This week has been uneventful like most other weeks. Gina and I did go to trivia night on Tuesday at The Joshua Tree. There was a funny team name I heard there, "We put the sensual in non-consensual". I think we came in 5th place out of about 20 or so teams. Typically I am good at history & sports related questions.

Monday night I shoveled out 3 parking spaces. It took about an hour and a half - we had about 10 inches of heavy snow. Last night I sat on my bottom and watched college basketball. March Madness starts in two weeks and I can't wait. I won't be gambling very much this year though - not like in years past when I had "theories" that sometimes panned out, sometimes didn't.

Next week I start training for my summer races. I've run about 4-5 times in the last few weeks, but that is not enough. Also, I've become lazy and tired from all the inactivity.

March Madness

2009-03-01T18:08:00.001-08:00

Back from Vermont. It was the 11th consecutive weekend up there for me which is the most consecutive weekends I've spent at any one house since I was in grade school (probably).

The snow at the mountain sucked this weekend, thanks to the rain that we got on Friday night. I went to bed early Friday night and therefore missed out on a fun hike up the mountain at 2AM and an even more fun ride down the mountain at 3 AM. The snow sucked though on Saturday, which led all of us back to the house early for the best jump session yet. It was a nice sunny afternoon and we had the tunes going, beer flowing, and the tricks were big. Tim was up to his usual big tricks. Geoff did his first back flip off a snowboard and Tim's friend Sully was also into doing inverted tricks. (lots of back flips this afternoon, and a few forward flips too). I don't do these - for the record. Geoff says I should give it a try next big powder day, but the thoughts of spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair doesn't sound that appealing - unless I get my own nurse.

I ended up landing funny on a failed jump (which most of mine were yesterday) and tweaking my neck. I have a mild case of whiplash (self diagnosis) which is uncomfortable, but I don't think it will slow me down for more than a day or two.

Got back today and Gina and I headed down to Harvard Square so she could buy a rubik's cube. She was playing with one for about 4 hours last night trying to solve it - and coming close.

Not really looking forward to the 6-12" of snow that we're supposed to get tonight. I was just starting to get back into running after work, but with the snow and ice, it is a lot harder to get motivated.

Things that I am looking forward to in March: March Madness, spring skiing, Cadbury mini-eggs, and daylight savings (next weekend).

Speaking of Pork

2009-02-22T19:23:00.000-08:00

Speaking of pork...

I just ordered a cuban sandwich from a nice little restaurant a couple of blocks down the street - Chez Henri. They have excellent bar food (Cuban) and also very good restaurant food (French). I ordered the Cuban sandwich tonight. I was real hung over this morning (back to that in a little) and had a salt bagel with cream cheese as I was leaving town this morning (Lyndonville, VT at 11.30am) and only had a small plate of chicken at 4. So, I was hungry and I called an order in.

Me: I'd like to order a Cuban Sandwich to pick up.

Bartender: You didn't do it already, did you?

Me: Pardon me?

Bartender: You didn't do it already, did you?

Me: No

In truth, I had no idea what he meant. I thought about this hard for the five minutes before I headed out my door to go pick it up. Anyway, I get there and there is a Cuban waiting that someone had ordered about 35 minutes ago and hadn't picked up yet. He offered me the "tepid" Cuban (his words), but I choose to wait the 2 additional minutes for my hot one. The bartender than offered me the option to pay by any way I prefer. I wish I had a checkbook, because I would have paid that way. I actually haven't had a checkbook in years (since 2005 when my last check ran out). I use bill pay and online transfers all the time and rarely find the need for a check (maybe 3-4 times a year). Let me say this. I hate checks. I think they are a huge waste of time and effort. I think most 32 year old males feel the same way. As I was waiting for my sandwich to come out, I thought about how interesting it would be to see the reaction had I tried to pay with check. "Who do I make the check out to?". It could be an interesting little social experiment to try and pay for everything with checks. Does anyone want to do this with me?

This weekend the conditions were fantastic up in Vermont. I got up there at about 10.45pm Friday night with Jen, Adam, & Kris in my car. The ride up was traffic free. We stopped in East Concord to refill (gas), and all take pisses. No bathroom for us though, as the last person to use the fill station restroom locked the keys in the bathroom. I didn't find out how long they've been locked in there, but you'd think a big Global company like Mobile would have figured out how to pay $50 for a locksmith. So, we all pissed in the back of the store. Me, I pissed on the side of a snowy dumpster.

Friday night we had about an hour of jump building/jumping. Bedtime was at 1.30am for me. We got off to an early start Saturday and were in the liftline by 8.45am for first chair. We were the youngest people in line by about 20-30 years at that time - lots of seniors awake in the early AM. Anyway, we skied hard all day from start to finish and I'm really sore today.

Last night I got pretty drunk. Following a two hour jump session from 4.30-6.30pm, I came inside, took a shower (my first one in Vermont in 5 weeks!) and immediately poured myself a nice tall glass of bourbon. Then played a 10 person game of Hold Em' where my best hand all night was a pair of 6's. I had no chance. So, after the game, I had some tequila shots and really passed out pretty early. I was messed with by a few people, but awoke to a face with no marker on it...so that was good.

Drove home solo today as I had a little miscommunication this morning with all my friends. I had a headache and wasn't very good about letting people know when I was leaving. So, I had a lot of time to think about random shit on the way home.

One thing I though about was how our softball team can improve this year. I think we need to think about repositioning our outfield depending on who is up to bat. I would say that 95% of hits in rec-league softball are balls that are pulled by the batter and since most lineups have only 0 or 1 lefty, this means that almost all the action occurs in left or left center. I think that in baseball, with good hitters, you obviously need right OFs, but in a league where only lefty's and the very good hitters hit opposite field, we could probably cheat even more than we did last year and put 3 OFs in left, only 1 on the RF side. Or, do away with the 2B in certain situations. Anyway, I thought about these scenario's for awhile.

Another thing I thought about was inventing a word and how cool that would be. Like "Google", except that I wouldn't actually do anything with my word like they did. That was only about a 30-60 second thought. I think it's because I've been playing too much Scrabble on Facebook lately.

Another thing I thought about was how much I hate it when people don't turn their headlights on in the driving rain. That is one of my top 5 driving pet peeves. Idiots. If you are one of these people, get off of this page now.

Fisher has his cone on still. Without it, he'll lick his balls (which are all stitched up). I'll post this picture next time.

Plug for Greg

2009-02-19T15:51:00.001-08:00

If you haven't checked out my friend Greg's blog yet, you should do so. www.mylifeamongtheunemployed.blogspot.com. Very entertaining.

I like having these short work weeks. I am heading up to VT tomorrow without Gina. She is staying home to tend to our cat. He had his operation on Tuesday and is now wearing a big cone on his head. He looks real sad, probably similar to how I would look if someone gave me a vacectomy and told me i had to wear a big funny looking hat for the next two weeks. Gina got home from work today and noticed an unusual stink in our apartment. Eventually she was able to trace it to Fisher's cone which happened to have some poop smeared on it. He must have misjudged the size of the cone when he leaned down to sniff his crap. Silly cat. I don't think I would make that mistake with my big hat.

Conditions in Vermont were pretty terrible last weekend, but they're getting about 6" today and should continue into tomorrow and maybe even Saturday. This will be the tenth weekend in a row that I will have gone up, and it looks now that I could spend the rest of the season up there. I really got my money's worth out of the Burke house.

Well, Seinfeld is on. I have nothing exciting to write about anyway.

Lewd & Lacivious

2009-02-13T15:12:00.000-08:00

I am pretty sure that if I were in junior high (or high) school right now I would have found someway to get involved in this new craze - sexting. Unfortunately I didn't get my first mobile phone until 1998, a few months after graduating college. Gina picked up the iPhone the other day which seems like the perfect device for taking lewd pictures of yourself and others. I'm thinking of getting one - and with the 18% discount offered to me through my employer (by AT&T), I would be a stupid idiot not to get one.

Anyway, short post here. Gina is making dinner (spinach gnochhi) before we head up north. Tomorrow we are having Mexican night at the house. We are going to get a pinata and fill it with nips of tequila and smash this shit out of it. Or something like that. I am bringing up a bottle of fine tequila though and it will lead to some serious fun.

Okay, this site is going okay, but i'd like more followers - just one so far?

Paging Mr. Mullen Roberts

2009-02-12T18:00:00.000-08:00

After 6 months writing my blog on cully.manvscomputer.com, i've decided to see what it would be like to use this site. Why? Well, mostly because I'd like to see who exactly is reading my blog. I encourage anyone who reads it to post a profile and picture. I also encourage you to make comments - the filthier, the better.

I just got back from my first ever company gathering with my new employer. There were about 100 or so people there. I had three beers. We got tickets for free drinks, two tickets, but I had three beers. I then ate a plate of food and talked to a fellow that sits about 20 feet from me at work. Older fellow. He asked me my name. I told him. He thought I said "Mullen". I didn't correct him. Someone else did eventually. We all had a good laugh.

Gina is my girlfriend. She went to the doctors today to have her knee looked at. She has been on her knees a lot lately. They are sore and swollen and look like bigger than normal knees. The doctor said that she is okay though and that she should be walking well into her 40s.

Tomorrow I am going to drive up to Vermont for my ninth straight weekend. I always do the driving because Gina has a tendency to make sharp sudden turns and does a lot of heavy breaking. She also freaks out when situations arise that a normal, more relaxed driver, would handle them more calmly. I would compare her moves to that of a jack rabbit after you gave it 6 cups of coffee. She is all over the place.

Greg is unemployed now. I am glad for him. His former company, my former company, was a horrible horrible place to work. I would rather be hit in the face with a sock full of pennies than have to step foot into that office again. Greg, can I hit you in the face with pennies?

Well, that is it. Maybe I will start using this site for all my blogging. I need to figure out how to get pictures to line up properly though.