What are the odds

So last month while we were on the second leg of our travels we found ourselves unpacking our bags at the mountain house in W. Virginia in a rush to hop right back in the car to drive an hour to catch a minor league baseball game.  Every few years we make it out to the mountain house in Berkley Springs for a week and each year we plan a trip to go see the Hagerstown Suns. 

The night at the ball park is always a favorite of the trip as I love me some ball park food and baseball.  We strategically pick the night when we are in town where the promotion is “Feed your face Monday” which I have to assume took very little time in the marketing dept budget brainstorming a name for that promotion. 

Feed your face night should actually be called, “Come to the ball park to stand in line for food while missing the game Monday”.  The ticket cost to get to watch a ball game plus unlimited Hot dogs, fries, chicken nuggets, popcorn, pretzels, etc is a whopping 10 dollars.  I don’t have to explain how amazing a deal that is.  With my frame and stature (ie fattyness) I really make the executives re-think this deal when I come to town. 

This past trip it appeared that they were very unprepared for this promotion as the line for each concession stand was at the minimum 20 people deep.  There were more people in line for the free food than in the stands for the stadium.  Let me just say this.  If this promotion at this price were to be offered in the Chicagoland area, I would be handing tickets to monday night games to the homeless whenever I was asked for spare change.  A person with the right plan could stand in line the whole game and gather enough food to eat until the following home Monday game.  The caviat that I didn’t mention is of all the items you get for free, you can only ask for two items per person when you suffer through the 20 minute wait to the window.  AND, when you finally finish your journey to the window, you are asked “What can I get for you?” to which you might say, “I’ll take a hot dog and a Pretzel” with the response from them being “Were out of hot dogs and it will be another 15 minutes on the Pretzels” leading you to follow up that request with two other free items that they might have available.  “Doh” is a good sound effect as you are denied of the items you have waited so patiently for. 

So, you walk away from the concession stand with your two free items not being the two items you wanted so you see others walking away from other stands with said items so you literally go get in the other line and wait another 20 minutes never really getting back to your seat to enjoy the ball game until you have gone through this process no less than 7 or 8 times until you can’t image the thought of another colon cancer causing processed hotdog to come within an inch of your mouth. 

The craziness in this trip to the ball park didn’t come from the food, but from the parking.  We took 3 vehicles from the mountain house as there were a total of 13 of us.  There was room in the two Vans for the wife and I, but I desperately needed to return calls for pricing and availability requests for the balloon twisting business as the mountain house didn’t exactly provide quality cellular coverage.  So the wife and I drove seperately from our group in a move that annoyed the other adults as it appeared they had moved things in vans to make room for us only to be told after that we were driving in our own car.  In hindsight I can’t imagine that they would have enjoyed listening to me talk to several perspective customers for 45 minutes about having me twist balloons at their party. (www.iloveballoonanimals.com for those of you who don’t know what I am talking about) 

We arrived as the game started and found parking far away from the park.  The two vans pulled in to two spots and I pulled in to their left.  I felt uncomfortable parking near a ditch where kids were riding as fast as they could and launching themselves into the air in a very uncontrolled manor not more than five feet from my car.  The kids were as annoyed by my close proximity park job as I was by the thought of a kid landing out of control and ramming the side of our new SUV.  So, I backed out and found a parking spot farther away.  It was a good choice in my opinion but by me backing out, it left the next Van in our group exposed just as mine was.  Everyone got out of the cars and we walked the couple hundred yards to the gate.  The entire way, the owner of the van that had been exposed debated as to whether he should move his car as well.   The tickets at will call were in his name, so he tossed me the keys and asked if I could move his car.  So the owner of the other van and I walked back to the kids with bikes to pull out the vans and find better parking.  As we drove through the parking lots we were surprised to find plenty of prime parking available right near the gates to get into the park.  So, we parked the cars and proceeded in with smiles on our faces anticipating the first ball park hot dog. 

Fast forward to the 7th inning.  I am full of hotdogs, popcorn, and beer. They had 32 oz cups of beer for 4.00.   (that’s nearly three bottles worth of beer for 4.00 if you were curious) Does it get any better than that?  It was around inning 4 that we realized that the reason for the available parking right by the gates was because that was foul ball territory. I thought to myself, there is no chance that I could have been given keys to a friends car, and asked to move it out of fear that a kid might bump into it by bike only to park it close to the park and have it hit by a foul ball.  What would the odds be for something like that?  Like 1 in a 1000? 

Anytime a ball is hit over the 1st base  side bleachers into the parking lot,  a clown whistle sound effect would come on the speakers with a very loud glass breaking sound effect in an attempt to actually cover up the real sound of baseballs slamming into parked cars.  There was a married couple sitting in the very top row of the bleachers in the corner with a perfect view of the parking  lot.  Whenever the sound effect would come on many people would yell up to that couple asking what color was the car that just got nailed.  It was once again during the seventh inning that I began thinking maybe we could move the car and avoid any risk what so ever.  Within moments of this thought a pop up foul ball flys over us and comes down into the parking lot.  We even heard the sound of the ball hitting a car despite the attempted cover up of the silly clown sound effect.  Someone near us screamed up to the couple, “What Color Car” to which they  yelled back “Dark Blue Van”. 

I sat there for a moment trying to remember what color Eric’s van was that I moved.  Was it Dark Blue or Black?  So I walked up to the top of the bleachers and look down and it looks like a ball hit the top of his van.  But it didn’t look bad, just like a scuff maybe from up there.  So, we enjoy the rest of the game and proceeded to leave the park.  We get to the van, and sure enough Eric’s van was nailed just above the drivers side door on the actual frame of the vehicle. (the scuff turned out to be bird poop as Eric’s car must have been a popular target on this particular evening)  There was a 4 inch gash in the metal from where the baseball nailed the van. 

I feel and felt horrible.  It couldn’t have hit the other van where the other owner parked his own vehicle.  Just had to hit the one that I parked.  I would guess that I apologized no less than 50 times to which Eric told me not to worry about it since he asked me to move his car but I still feel bad. 

As a side note of what some might call karma or irony, 4 years ago while the wife and I were visiting with Eric and his family in Indy, Eric backed his car out of their drive way right into my wife’s car causing a huge basketball sized dent in the rear quarter panel.  He offered to pay for the repair back then but we never asked for the money nor did we ever have it repaired.   So, with that looming over the whole situation you can’t help but feel that we might be even in some strange sort of way.

Filed under: Car, Vacation, balloon, balls, beer, memories, weird

Chilly Willy and the high speed chase

This past weekend we headed down to Indy to visit with Friends from College.  Not my friends, but my wife’s friends.  Over the past 9 years I have become friends with them as well and they are good people.  Each year, for a week in July we all travel somewhere together.  Over the years, the trip has gotten trickier (sp?) since all of them have children now and my wife and I are the only ones without.  Last Summer we did the weekend camping trip with them when my wife was pregnant, welcoming us to the world of parenthood, only to have the miscarriages of the twins  several weeks later. 

It was great seeing all of our friends down in Indy.  The friends we were staying with were throwing a birthday party on Saturday and Sunday for their son Scott, who turned 7.  Obviously with a group of children that size, I twisted balloons for all of the children as a birthday gift to Scott.  At around 8pm on Saturday night the four of us busted out the Wii and opened some wine and had a blast playing Mario Party.  I had never played before, and definitely decided that we need to get that game.  It was perfect for four people to play over late night pizza and beer/wine.  After the second party in two days on Sunday we made the journey home and we welcomed home by the 54 degrees on the thermostat.

Apparently while we were gone our furnace broke.  After doing some troubleshooting on my own (hoping I don’t blow up the house) I decided there was nothing that I was going to be able to do to fix the damn thing.  So, I started making phone calls and was extremely surprised how difficult it was to get someone to a. answer their phone b. call me back.  After 30 minutes of non stop phone calls to heating and air guys out of the phone book, I finally decided that the first one to call me back would get the business.  More than one hour after I started the calls, finally someone called me back giving me every reason under the sun as to why I shouldn’t have him out that night.  He even did trouble shooting with me to uncover the problem.  Once we figured it out over the phone, he begun spouting out astronomical numbers hoping to prevent me from still having him out. When I said that we still wanted him to come, he then said, “Let me check to see if I have the part in my truck and i’ll call you back.”  Do you think he called me back?  No. 

First of all, I am utterly shocked at how difficult it was to get somoene to come out to my house on a Sunday evening to fix my furnace.  For every single Heating and Air company that whines about not making enough money, I say look in the mirror.  Maybe this isn’t such an issue with larger companies as it is with one man shops, but the guy that did everything he could to get off the phone was from a pretty large local outfit. 

Lucky for me my friend stupidtom is the big boss at a company that does such work.  He talked me down from dropping a sick amount of money for the repair and we would schedule one of his guys to come out the following day.  The wife and I decided to tough it out in our house and we built a fortress of blankets and inflatable matresses on the floor right next to the fireplace in the living room.  We were able to keep the house around 55 degrees overnight and survived.  The following day (yesterday)  someone from stupidtom’s company came out and fixed the furnace.  Not only was I pleased with the service he offered, I bought from him an annual service agreement for both heating and air conditioning since had we had that agreement in place, we would have likely been spared the parts for this visit anyway. 

I kept poking and prodding the guy from stupidtom’s company trying to get the dirt about stupidtom.  Hoping he would say something so utterly ridiculous.  It’ s always good to have dirt on some one.  But, unfortunately I was left with nothing but a story about how stupidtom is the most intimidating mofos in the house, which is pretty much what I suspected.  

This morning on my way to work I was run off the road by a high speed police chase.  I saw the police car in my rear view mirror and thought for a moment that I was going to get pulled over until I realized that the car behind me was speeding up really fast and closing in on my rear end, so I drove off the road and before I had a chance to slow down the car behind me flew by with the police car in chase.  As my mind realized what I was witnessing, my heart began to pound and I had to mentally talk myself out of following the chase even though it really wasn’t going out of my way to work.  I don’t think I have ever seen a high speed chase in person and it was kind of cool.  I haven’t been able to locate anything on it in the small amount of free time today, so hopefully something will come up tomorrow.

Filed under: Birthday, Wii, balloon, balls, weekend

No rest for the weary

I did it.  I did it.  I did it.  I didn’t think I could but I did.  As recently as this past Monday I argued with myself mentally as I had for the past 5 months about what excuses I could create to get out of doing the four school assemblies.   Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with any sort of illness complex enough that could prevent me from twisting balloons and talking at the same time.  Even if I did come down with some sort of unworldly strain of the hiv. 

The illness is stagefright.  Which translates in English as being a pussy.  4 shows in two days in front of a total of 2400 children.  That, to me, is as scary as it gets. 

So now I have this ridiculous sense of accomplishment.  Unlike anything I have ever experienced. 

Here are a few funny stories from the past two days:

1.  Yesterday at the third school, I was asked by no less than 4 different school staff if I would be wearing a mask in any way.  First of all, why is it so hard to believe that someone can twist balloons that isn’t a clown?  Secondly, who twists balloons while wearing a mask? 

What I didn’t know was that the question originated from the same assembly the year before. The Village paid money to have an authentic spider man come in.   Click here for the page where grant money was offered to help pay for spiderman.  Anywho, at last years assembly, the moment spiderman came walking in, this boy high tailed it out of there like a bat out of hell screaming and crying along the way.  Now the school has a “no mask” policy thanks to Spiderman. 

2.  While walking around with the microphone at one of the schools asking the children for some ideas that they could come up with on train safety, a little boy’s response went like this:  “Yesterday a boy got hit by a train and his brains went everywhere…”  Followed by an “ewwww” from all the children around him.  It was at that moment that I knew it was smart that I would hear the answer and then repeat it myself into the microphone for all to hear.

3. At the first school, it didn’t dawn on me that they layer the children from kindergarten up front to 5th grade in the back so that the smallest are the closest.  Whenever I would ask a question and I would go to the children closest to me, I would have a child say something totally off point.  One kindergartener I asked for an answer from thought it would be great to stand up and talk about her mom and helmets and her cat and all sorts of stuff and I didn’t know what to do.  The child wouldn’t stop talking.  The teachers began laughing and I just stood there waiting for her to finish so we could move on with the assembly.  I bet she rambled for a good 2 minutes before she finally sat down. 

Well that’s it.  I have more on my mind but not enough time.  Big night tonight.  My billiards team made it to the championships of our local league and we need to step up and defend our crown. 

Filed under: balloon, balls, creepy, stupid, weird, work

Blah, Blah, Blah…

I hate to say it, but life right now is about as boring as it gets.  I would classify it as the calm before the storm. 

I fell hard off my “ride the snake” bandwagon.  I was still eating somewhat healthy, but since I got back from my trip to Vegas I haven’t been nearly as motivated as I was prior to.  I jumped back on this week and am going at it harder than before.  I started the second phase of my supplemental campaign and started taking Creatine in addition to Hydroxycut and Meal replacement drinks.  I am beginning to survive solely on liquids and the weird thing about it all is that I am never really hungry any more.  Here is a snapshot of my food for yesterday, and I feel gay talking about this because the bottom line is that this new diet is about as unmanly as it gets. 

Breakfast:  half a cup of low fat yogurt.  Yep, I said it, LOW FAT yogurt.  WTF you say?  Me too.  For three months I was eating regular yogurt.  Then I asked my wife to pick up my usual two vats full of yogurt a week, and she came home with low fat yogurt.  It tastes a little like yogurt, but not.  If I can enter a weird moment with you, I would classify it as tasteless spooge.  If served warm I would have to question my sexuality.  I still do while I eat it anyway…

I take Hydroxycut Hardcore and fishoil with breakfast. 

Around 10am I will have half of a meal replacement shake.

Around noon, I will have the other half of the meal replacement shake.  I also will take the creatine at this point. 

Around 4 I take my second hydroxycut and fish oil for the day in prep for either the gym or twisting balloons for the evening. 

If I get to the gym, I will get a health shake for dinnner post workout. 

When I get home I take my second dosage of creatine. 

That’s it.  That is what enters my body on a daily basis other than the a standard meal here or there when I get to sit down with my wife which isn’t that often.  This lifestyle was so hard at first, since my true love in life was to eat good food.  And good food is anything that is bad for you.  But, my body has grown used to the fact that I can’t do that any longer. 

Last night at the gym, I was on an eliptical machine next to a guy that smelled like a bag of asses.  Just thought I would put that out there.  I have to begin scrutinizing who I get on a machine next to because I seriously at one point put the towel over my nose and pretended to wipe my face for a good 10 minutes to complete my workout.  In all seriousness, the smell was as if he had sweat for two days straight without using any sort of deodorant, combined with crapping his pants while he worked out.  I thought about it for a good minute that thought that I should have earned a metal for staying next to him for as long as I did, and I will remember that guy in the future to save my lungs from breathing in the wretched stench that this guy emitted. 

On a final gym note, there is a total tranny that works out at my gym.  It’s great.  He/she has hair like a woman, wears makeup like a woman, dresses like a woman, has fake boobs like a woman, but has a weiner.  He/she is ripped, too.  In better shape than 90 percent in the gym.  What amazed me most was that He/she was wearing spandex that explicitly drew attention to his package.  I honestly looked around to see if cameras were rolling because I might be on some sort of joke show. 

I just finished a booked called “I hope they serve beer in Hell” by Tucker Max.  I will share some of my thoughts soon on that.  My best friend Schief is the man behind the Fukudometer and is beginning to get international fame because of a name he slapped on cardboard as well as some Japanese numbers.  It’s quite funny really. 

 

 

 

Filed under: Boobies, Cubs, Exercise, Schief, bag of asses, balls, body, boredom, fat, muscles, ride the snake, smelly, stink, weird

“Put your elbows on the table…”

Yesterday will go down in the archives of my life as possibly one of the worst ever. 

“Put your elbows on the table..” He said.  If you don’t know what that means, let me back up and work up to it.

Yesterday started off shitty to begin with.  When taking out the garbage on Monday night, I managed to hit a patch of ice and fell.  The rolling garbage can fell too.  I think I hit the ground harder because the garbage can wasn’t whimpering as loud as I was as I rolled it out to the street.  I hurt my back.  I think it might be the worst that my back has ever felt.  Either something is torn or I have punctured a lung.  I can’t be certain.  Anytime that I breath or move suddenly I wince in pain.  I would assume that if my lung was punctured, I would really know and I would have gone to the hospital, so I am leaning towards something being torn.  I will give it a few more days. 

So, getting out of bed Tuesday morning and getting dressed was a treat.  I was off to work.  Upon arrival and review of my daily outlook calendar of appointments and conference calls, it shocked me to see that I had a Urologist appointment scheduled for 2:30pm.  Joyous.  I haven’t seen one of them in a few years.  I have been having issues that I won’t describe here, but I can say that these issues were major in my life 10-12 years ago and I had to have surgery.  Now the issues have slowly crept back into my life which is setting off alarms everywhere now that my wife and I are considering having children. 

My new Urologist isn’t very nice.  The nurse asked me all of the standard fare questions as she typed them into the computer in my little room.  After a good 10 minute wait the doctor finally arrived.  He was an older Doctor wearing very eccentric pants and shoes.  Upon arrival, he introduced himself and then sat down at the computer.  He began to type and click the mouse.  I was unable to see the monitor from where I was because there was a privacy screen.  He typed and clicked for a good 7-10 minutes while I sat there in the quiet room.  No questions, no chatter…I honestly felt I was back in my high pressure close the sale days where the first person to talk would lose.  I lost.  I noticed a pamphlet next to the doctor that was covering “No-Needle, No-Scalpel, Vasectomy”.  I instantly thought about my friend Toms (www.stupidtom.com) questions regarding this “non-invasive” procedure, and saw my chance to get some answers.  Tom’s concern from what I recalled was a question about where the sperm goes.  His answer was very scientific and he discussed how the semen remains the same since that doesn’t come from where the sperm cells come from.  The sperm cells get absorbed in the body (he used some fancy term to say that it doesn’t cause any problems when absorbed since they are only cells that the body created to begin with…something like protein enzymes or something technical like that.)  But I will type word for word a potential complication as it is stated in the pamphlet:

“Sperm granuloma, a hard, sometimes painful lump about the size of a pea may form as a result of the sperm leaking from the cut vas deferens.  The lump is not dangerous and is almost always resolved by the body in time.  Scrotal support and mild pain relievers are usually all that are needed for symptoms, thought I may suggest other treament.”

“Congestion, a sense of pressure caused by sperm in the testes, epididymis, and lower vas deferens, may cause discomfort some 2 to 12 weeks after vasectomy.  Like granuloma, congestion usually resolves itself in time.”  

I won’t comment on this.  I will let the words speak to each of you in it’s own little way.  Back to me and my quiet wait.  I honestly think he was checking email.  Checking email or playing sudoku online.  Maybe even a cross word? 

We finally got down to the tests. Most of everything he said was good news.  I have to do some more testing to be sure, so more will come.  After he began explaining what was going on, he pointed at the table and said, “Put your elbows on the table” as he reached for a tube of jelly.  I can’t be certain what happened next because it is all a bit foggy, but I remember him saying something about ”not fighting it” and while throwing a box of kleenex at me to “clean myself up”.  As I drove away a little tear streamed down my cheek.  (being over dramatic) 

Ok, so there wasn’t a tear, but definitely a grimace at what I had just experienced…until…wait for it…BAM, BAM!  Within 5 minutes of having a finger shoved in and around my rectum I hit a pothole that destroyed my two right tires.  It had seriously been  5 minutes since one of the most traumatic events occured in my life until I was now unable to get off the road due to having tires shredded by a three foot long pot hole that had to have been 8-10 inches deep. 

An officer called in for a tow truck since I was actually blocking one of two lanes, and AAA wasn’t going to be able to get someone to me for a good 45 minutes to an hour.  My wife picked me up, we followed the tow truck to the auto place and the wife and I continued on to the restaurant in Algonquin where I twisted balloons and she graded papers and did school work for a good two hours. 

…yep, I would say that yesterday sucked something hard.

Filed under: Cops, Cry baby, achy, balloon, balls, body, pain, scared, scrotum, stupid, weird, wife

What on earth was I thinking?

I have mentioned many times throughout my posts that I twist balloons.  I don’t officially have a website for my balloon business, and I wouldn’t really even call it a business, because I do not devote enough time to consider it a business.  I would call it a hobby that has grown from something I did for family and friends a few times a year to something that takes up most of my spare time.  In fact last year, I did over 125 events.  I guess I would classify myself as being in denial about a hobby that is forcing me to become a businessman almost against my will.   I can’t turn away money.  When I get a phone call from someone asking me to come to their house and twist balloons for their children and get paid handsomely for it, how can I say no? 

That happened to me this past Saturday.  I received a call from someone asking me if I would be willing to entertain 20 children during the superbowl. 

For those of you who do not know me, I am sick when it comes to football.  Watching the Superbowl is better in my mind than anything I can think of.  You could create a movie where the general theme is a compilation of the finest breasts on Earth and I choose the Super bowl over that.  Even if I would only get once chance at watching said Boobie movie.  (I love boobies too, don’t get me wrong.) 

Upon receiving the request to entertain for the Superbowl, I contemplated at first whether I truly could do it.  A debate began amongst the several different voices within my cerebellum and he who had the loudest voice won.  The strongest personality was the balloon twister.  I am embarrased to admit that in a cage match between my inner twister and my inner football fan, the inner twister won.  But only on one condition did my inner football fan agree to let the twister win. 

I would have to make enough money to make the football fan stop crying. 

So, I sent what I thought would be rejected rates, only to be put into shock when they accepted.  At first they didn’t.  They asked if I would work for less than two hours and charge less, but that email was followed up with a we changed our mind, we will book you for your full amount.  (I wouldn’t have done it for less time or money.) 

So here I sit.  Knowing that in six days instead of having a beer in my hand and a chili-cheese dip stain on my football jersey, I will be missing the super bowl while I try to entertain roughly 20 children so that 30 adults will have an opportunity to enjoy the game without their children distracting them for 2 hours and potentially 3 if they like what I am doing and decide to pay the extra money that day. 

This sad story of missing the Superbowl is brought to you by the fine people who thought it would be a good idea to build a bunch of casinos in a desert, and my friend Brian who thought it would be fun to get married this year thus forcing us to drag his ass to Las Vegas .  If I wasn’t going in March, I doubt that the inner twister would have stood a chance against the football fan.  

Filed under: balloon, balls, confused, fight, free porn, grouchy, pain, stupid, train wreck, work

Well the weather outside is…

About as bad as it gets. (Frightful?)

Today I am bored out of my skull.  I distinctly remember saying that earlier today out loud and realizing that if I were a manager, I might not like hearing an employee say how bored they were.  But it is true.  I am sitting at my desk twiddling thumbs and organizing my new wallet.   None of my customers have been in this week.  The week between Christmas and New Years is always dead.  I have taken a couple of days off to stretch my own holiday, but I guess I would rather not waste my own vacation days until I can actually dip my toes in an ocean or double down on eleven when the dealer shows  six at 8:00am in the morning after a night out on the Vegas strip.   Besides, these days allow me to actually catch up from the craziness that is the first half of December. 

I had an ultra sound done yesterday, and they didn’t do it on my stomach.  I can’t go to far into it, but the doctor found a mass in one of my giggle berries.  I wish I could just go all out on a post where I explore many different viewpoints about having a strange man squirt goo all over your testicles and proceed to rub a microphone all around while snapping photos on some expensive electronic equipment.   My scrotum sounds like a baby.  I could hear the heart beat and everything.  I could take every thought and turn them this way and that and really dig deep, but I won’t. 

I will say that it was ultrasound amateur hour.  I was intentionally scheduled with a male ultrasound technician because they wanted me to be comfortable.  I was shocked upon entering the mood lit room to find a woman waiting.  I was introduced to her and told that she is training and would be “sitting in” on her first male ultra sound.  Great.  So, I laid down, the guy did his thing, and upon completion he stood up and asked me if I would mind the lady giving it a whirl for the first time.  “Why not?” I answered.  I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe we should call out to Dorris and Betty out at the front counter and see if they wanted to give it a go as well.  So, I laid there while a woman that wasn’t supposed to even be in the room played with my balls as an educational experience.  Good times.   

The new year is upon us.  This will be my first year at disappointing myself (resolutions).  The list is growing.  Ever since I decided to try out the New Years Resolution thingy, it seems that everything that I do wrong in life has turned into something that I am going to fix as of January 2nd.  (Not January 1st, because who wants to start a diet/stop drinking/quit farting/stop smoking/stop picking his/her nose/stop watching free porn on a day known for binge eating/drinking?)

So, come January 2nd, I will magically turn into a new man.  More to come on the magical change that will/won’t happen.  Have a safe and happy New Year celebration. 

Filed under: Gay, balls, boredom, confused, excuse, fart, free porn, grouchy, mean, scrotum, stupid, train wreck, weird, wife, work