Thanks! (for all the fish)

I was standing in line at the grocery store tonight, buying some last minute Thanksgiving food (I know, dumb night to do this) and I noticed that the mood was lifted. Everyone was talking to everyone. The large man in front of me looked at the whisky and 7up I was buying with a smile on his face. "OH, some good ole' fashioned 7 and 7. That's the perfect holiday drink." Together we reminisced about past holidays while we waited in the seemingly unmoving line. When he checked out, he looked me in the eye, shook my hand and said, "Have a wonderful holiday season." A simple sentence that can invoke the most sincere well wishes that two acquaintances can share.

There are literally a thousand things to be thankful for on a daily basis. I'm thankful to have such an entertaining, driven, loving family each with their own lively personalities. Everyone from Grandma's ability to brighten any room, to the little brothers constantly flipping off government symbols, the in-laws, to honorary family members. The people I'm surrounded by seem to be the last stronghold for good compassionate people on the planet.

I'm thankful that the individual struggles and demon's tearing at everyone's beings never got the better of anyone. Through the weak economy and world conflicts, we are all able to not only survive but thrive.

I'm thankful that there are people like my cousin Ryan that have the guts to fight for what's right in this world. People like me have never had the guts to stand up, and literally bring the fight to the darkness.

I'm thankful that Sallie is working at a newspaper again. The passion and spirit she had when we first started dating has been reignited with a brighter burning color than before.

I'm proud that my dad has been able to make it literally after having the world cave in on him. He's been able to beat odds most of us never face. I never heard him use the words, "I give up" even in his darkest moments. An unspoken testament of his character.

I'm proud of my mother, years after leaving school, she's able to continue and just about complete her further education. The odds were against her being able to work full time, run a house, and go to school, but again she persevered.

What can I say, I got some damn stubborn and persistant genes. Nothing is able to keep us down.

I'm thankful that my kittens have personality and don't just sleep, eat, and poop. Although there are times when Slider deserves to be choked, I would want no other cat.

I'm thankful that Michael, our adopted cat is now staying in a warm caring house. Now he'll be able to shed all over someone else's work pants when he greets them.

And although this might seem a little superficial, I'm glad the Get Up Kids are back together. This band literally represents the happiness of late highschool and early college for me and my group of friends that I still hang out with. We could all relate to the feeling of restlessness, abandonment, and mischief The Get Up Kids sang about. (They are from Kansas City, so it makes sense.)

I made a mixed CD for Sallie for when she went to Germany. I had one song in mind when I started it, "I'll Catch You" by The Get Up Kids. I built the playlist based off this song. If we didn't got with Stevie Wonder for our first dance as a married couple, I would've pushed for this one.



I look forward to the next year with everyone. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Peace, love, and empathy

I'm a Softy that Wants a Gun

So, there's this adorable black cat named Micheal that our apartment building has sort of adopted. He kept running from his owner and each person in the apartment complex has called the number on the cats tag and each time we've witnessed this drunken redneck come to pick up Micheal in this monster truck. He always says, "I just spent $1500 f-ing dollars on face surgery for that cat. HE needs to get his ass back here." The owner curses, calling Micheal a little shit and the cat runs and desperately tries to hide. We've all come to the conclusion that the owner is abusive.

We would love to take him to a no kill shelter, but he has a microchip and would be promptly returned to this jackass. So instead we've been feeding him. We got a big box we've filled with blankets and put a towel over it so he can stay warm. For the most part he just hangs out, rubs our legs appreciatively on our way inside, and then goes back to being the apartment cat.

Everyone in our building already has the maximum threshold of cats. Otherwise we all said we would adopt him.

So tonight, Sallie and I came back from our midnight run to find Michael on top of the fountain next door and a demon opossum in Micheal's house. We've ran into this opossum before. He locks us out of our house because the front door is always chained. So we always have to make a lot of noise, circle the block, and hope he's gone when we get back.

Not tonight. That disgusting rodent was still hanging out. I don't understand why so many children's books romanticize these obviously evil, rabies carrying, beedy eyed, beasts. I've never wanted to shoot an animal before, but for a opossum, I'd make an exception.

So I had to climb over the railing, all the while keeping and eye to make sure the beast wasn't about to pounce. We got inside and I immediately grabbed a broom and starting banging the top of the box. It finally left, but slowly, giving me an eye like "I'm going to be back, and I'm going to kill you in your sleep."

So I'm going to drench Micheal's house in holy water and seriously consider getting an opossum taser.

Living the Busy Life

It's been a long time since I've truly written a blog. I could use the typical excuse of I've been busy, but I just feel like that's an overused excuse by humans. When did we become so busy? What happened to the town carnivals or wandering endlessly through nature trails and parks with friends?

Riding a bike used to be a targetless hobby. I would ride up and down streets endlessly, just happy to feel the wind.

So instead of just saying things have been busy I'm going to say I've been adult productive.

There are a few positions opening at my current job. They've actually been opening for several weeks now, but I've been told that interviews should be scheduled this week.

Hope, pray, sacrifice goats, or do a dance around a fire. Whatever it is you do, do it for me. I've been working extremely hard setting myself apart from the crowd to just get laid off in December because of some ridiculous rule within the company.

I want to stop worrying about employment. We graduated at probably the worst time to graduate college in the history of the country. Sallie is one of the few people I know that actually is doing something related to her degree. The rest of us were thrust into a horrible economy with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. I found something I like doing and I would like to keep doing it.

Sallie and I also fell in love with a house only two blocks from our house and were more than willing to buy it that day. Common sense took over after a brief discussion with our cousin Eric. He gave some good advice and tips and will help us if we want it.

We never really wanted a house because it felt too permanent. We wanted to head for the mountains once the economy got better, but Sallie and I are in a good place right now. We can see ourselves settling in St. Louis for a few years. At least long enough for a house to increase in value. And no matter how much I don't want to admit it, my cats are my children. I come home from work and they are so happy to see me. I think they deserve a little more frolicking room. (And we deserve a room to lock Slider in far away from our bed.)

So, potentially, if I land this job, we're going to start looking at real estate in the next month or so.

Also, something that has been on the back burner for two years now is our honeymoon. Unlike most married couples that get to spend their wedding loot on a honeymoon to Cancun, we were broke and unemployed. Our honeymoon money bought some nice creditor a fancy dinner as we paid off a large chunk of our moving back debt. We feel we've earned the vacation. We want to go to Ireland and drink a Guinness in a pud. We want to head to Britain and scream blind slurs at the opposing team. I want to get a passport and get some stamps in it damnit!

Three other projects I'm taking on right now are also eating time.

First, I'm going through all of my music and fixing tags and downloading album info. This has taken two weeks so far and I've only gotten through the "Bs."

Second, I think I'm going to make this blog more of an interactive website. We have the Adobe Creative Suite and don't use it enough. I'm going to start ripping into Dreamweaver and see what I can create.

Third, www.circuitjerk.com has been keeping me busy. We've been getting a decent amount of hits, have survived a year, and have the fall/winter gaming season upon us.

I hope to start doing this regularly again. I also hope to actually do Pop Culture for the Inexperienced a bit more. Maybe not weekly like I would like, but bi-weekly I would hope.