Coffee: An Appreciation

Ah, coffee. When I recently found myself carrying two large mugs of you up the steps to my writing area – because one would not be enough – I realized just how much you mean to me.

While there are a multitude of things I could say about you, what amazes me the most is your ability to bring me joy in so many different ways.

When I open up a fresh package of you, I like your smell as it gently drifts up to my nostrils. It’s almost as if you’re telling me, in your own special way, that I made a truly wise decision in purchasing you.

I like the whirring and the crunching that I hear when you’re being ground, and although I know you’re only going through a physical change, it still seems like there’s more to it than that, like I’m witnessing something almost magical.

I like the gurgles and the hisses that emanate from the you-maker when you’re brewing, and I especially like when the first droplets of you fall down into the pot, so slow and tantalizing, like a faucet dripping miracles.

I like the sound you make when I pour you into one of my cavernous mugs: a waterfall of black gold worth far more to me than any oil.

I like when I raise you up to my lips and your steam tickles my glasses, enveloping them in a fog that perfectly symbolizes my blind devotion to you.

I like my first sip of you in the morning, and how for that one beautiful moment everything in the world feels right. It’s like having Christmas every day.

I like when you become one of my companions on a long road trip, joining the mournful sounds of country music in making bearable the task of putting up with drivers who have never heard of turn signals or brakes.

I like you in no-name cafes and small town diners and roadside restaurants, where you make breakfast a thing of beauty, or perfectly top off an evening meal with a hint of class that never reaches pretension.

I like drinking seemingly endless quantities of you when engaging in a deep conversation with a good friend. You’re like a silent third party; the best listener in the world.

I like you in mugs and I like you in Styrofoam, and I like you in the gas station cups with the lids that never quite fit. I also like you in tin, especially when huddled over a raging fire on a cold night.

I like you in the winter and I like you in the fall, and I even like you during the dog-days of summer when you make me sweat to the point of wanting to discard several layers of clothing, even if I’m in public.

I like you in full-strength and I like you in decaff, and sometimes I even like you in hazelnut. I do not, however, like you with cream or with ice, or when you’re instant, or when you’re strong enough to remove paint from the wall. You need only to be hot and black to achieve perfection, and perfection has no room for improvement.

Ah, coffee. You’re my lifeline, my rock, my constant companion. You’re my sunrise and my sunset, and if I’m ever in need of money, I’ll spill you in my lap at McDonalds and find a good lawyer.

Words

It’s been said that women speak, on average, about 20,000 words per day, while men clock in at a measly 7,000. Now, while this difference of 13,000 words between the genders is undeniably interesting, if you think I’m going to delve into it in any way, shape, or form, then you’re absolutely crazy. (I get in enough trouble with women as it is. I certainly don’t need to go out looking for it.) However, in the spirit of journalistic integrity, I would be remiss if I didn’t include at least one professional opinion on the subject:

And now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’d like to shift our focus to the 7,000 words per day that a given male supposedly speaks, which – at least in my case – seems to be ridiculously high. If you do the math, assuming 8 hours of sleep a night (and no talking in your sleep), that comes out to roughly 437 spoken words per hour – or about 7 words per minute – which I find to be nothing short of laughable.

On a good day (e.g. a Saturday) I’d guess that I end up at only around 100 or so spoken words, and that’s if I’m feeling particularly chatty. Heck, there have even been days when my first words have been to a cashier at the grocery store sometime during the late afternoon or early evening. (And now that there’s self-checkout, I can usually get out of that, too!) But I suppose examining the weekend isn’t the most accurate means of determining the number of words I speak per day, so what follows is a painstakingly researched replication of my verbal output during an average weekday.

6:40 a.m. (Upon waking): “Ugh. Is it Saturday?” – 4 words

6:40 a.m. (Upon realizing that it is not, in fact, Saturday): “$#@#$%.” – 1 word

6:45-6:48 a.m. (Singing “Amarillo by Morning” in the shower) – 137 words

7:25-7:28 a.m. (Singing “Gentle on my Mind” in the car on the way to work) – 282 words

7:45 a.m. (Upon taking my first sip of coffee at my desk): “Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh, it’s like liquid heaven!” – 5 words

8:00 a.m. (As a co-worker approaches my desk for something work related): “I’m busy. Come back later.” – 5 words

8:37 a.m. (Upon reading something funny on the internet): “Ha ha!” – 2 words.

9:02 a.m. (As the same co-worker again approaches my desk): “I’m busy. Come back later.” – 5 words

10:37 a.m. (As the same co-worker again approaches my desk): “I’m busy. Come back after lunch.” – 6 words

12:04 p.m. (After swallowing my first bite of lunch): “I should really learn how to cook someday.” – 8 words

1:37 p.m. (After feeling like I should drop a few buzzwords in order to pretend I know what’s going on around me): “We don’t want a knowledge silo situation here, so I suggest we leverage the cloud in order to facilitate and streamline our entire communication strategy.” – 25 words

2:23 p.m. (After being woken from a deep slumber at my desk by the sound of a nearby phone ringing): “Huh? Whazzat? Knowledge silo!” – 4 words

3:14 p.m. (As the same co-worker again approaches my desk): “I’m busy. Come back tomorrow.” – 5 words

4:00 p.m.: “Woo-hoo! Quitting time!!” – 4 words, assuming that “woo” and “hoo” each count as one.

4:05-4:08 p.m. (Singing “Luckenback, Texas” in the car on the way home) – 262 words

5:37 p.m. (After swallowing my first bite of dinner): “This tastes like old socks. I probably should have ordered pizza.” – 11 words

6:07 p.m. (After seeing a spider scurry across the floor): “Whoa! That’s as big as a bulldozer! Die! Die! Die!” – 10 words

7:56 p.m. (After realizing that I can make a seven-letter word in Words With Friend but there’s no room for it on the board): “@#$#$#!!!” – 1 word

9:42 p.m. (Practicing to be an old man): “Get off my lawn!!!!” – 4 words

And so, when you add it all up, it comes out to exactly 781 spoken words, which means that I’m running, on average, about a 6,219 spoken word deficit per day. That’s a lot of unused words, and I can’t help but wonder if they’re all building up inside of me, and if so, will I ever have to use them in order to bring my system back into equilibrium? Basically, I’m afraid that someday I’ll hit a breaking point and suddenly have thousands upon thousands of unused words flooding out of me, essentially turning me into a babbling idiot who may have no choice but to run for public office. It’s a scary thought, to be sure, but maybe there are some ways I can mitigate the risk. For example, maybe somebody wants to buy some unused words off of me? I’ll sell them for cheap! And if that doesn’t work, I guess I can just try to be more vocal, in order to try and use up more of my daily word allotment. Hmmmmm.... maybe I can start taking a shower in the morning and the evening. That’s a whole extra song to sing!

Nostalgia

Just recently, during a trip back home to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I found myself wandering the halls of the John J. MacInnes Student Ice Arena, a place where I spent many hours of my college days at MTU working as an all-purpose janitorial engineer and laborer extraordinaire.

The air was brisk, just as I remembered, and a smell that I can only describe as “Eau de ice-arena” still hung lazily in the air. However, a lot had changed. The seats had been replaced, with the new versions mercifully sporting the Husky team colors of black and yellow, instead of the orange, yellow, and green disasters that had been there prior. Skyboxes and a gigantic scoreboard had also been added, and new signage and memorabilia displays helped to enhance the fan experience.

In short, it was a far cry from the days when I’d roamed the halls with a mop and a bottle of Bath Mate.

During my tenure as an employee at MTU – where my jurisdiction also included the rest of the Student Development Complex – it could never be said that we didn’t have fun. Just off the top of my head, I can distinctly remember the following:

• Being a co-founder and vice president of the now-defunct SDC Student Union.
• Playing Husky Trivia Challenge in the parking lot during hockey games, where fans were given the opportunity to have their two-dollar parking fee waived if they answered a trivia question of our choice correctly. (As I recall, nobody ever won, because even if the question was answered successfully, we’d still tell them they were wrong.)
• Toilet paper roll fights.
• Planting scrawled messages in the press box on crumpled-up pieces of paper that begin with the line, “If you’re reading this, then I’m already dead.”
• Putting a manila folder stuffed with McDonald’s French fries into a file cabinet in the office area – labeled “McDonald’s Fries” of course – just to see what the reaction would be.

I could go on for pages, but to be honest, I’d rather not. In fact, reminiscing about the SDC is something I rarely indulge in anymore, as somewhere along the line I made the conscious decision to try and not become the sad-looking guy who spends too much of his time romanticizing the past. In general, I consider nostalgia to be sort of like junk food. Everything in moderation, because too much can be bad for you.

However, as I stood in the ice arena a few short weeks ago, thinking about the times when I’d helped to paint the Winter Carnival logo onto the ice, I began to see it in a different way. Nostalgia doesn’t just have to be about reliving your so-called glory days. Instead, it can be used as a way to measure just how far you’ve come.

For example, the person I was back then and the person I am now are remarkably different. The college version of me tried a little too hard to be noticed, and he was a bit on the loud and annoying side. He’d also never really traveled, and he’d never been away from home long enough to truly appreciate family. In addition, he knew absolutely nothing about nutrition, as evidenced by the mind-boggling amount of Mountain Dew he somehow managed to consume without having all of his internal organs shut down in protest.

Not that everything about me has changed, mind you. I’m still infused with the same vein of silliness that’s been my constant companion throughout life –and which I hope to never lose – and I’m still constantly bombarded by the urge to come up with the perfect one-liner. On the downside, I still experience the same bouts of incredible shyness around girls, and I still worry a little too much about what others think of me. In short, it’s a mixed bag, but one that I’ll gladly accept.

Looking back at the college version of me, I can also see glimpses of who I’d eventually become. At the time, I’d never really considered doing any sort of writing, much less sharing it with the public, but it was during my tenure at the SDC that I penned an issue of the Student Union’s newsletter, The Cleanest Urinal. Looking back at it now, it was truly terrible, but it was still the first step – as shaky as it was – towards what I now consider to be my favorite hobby.

And then there’s the whole career thing. Back then I was spending several hours a day in the computer lab writing programs and trying not to inhale – as the body odor in that place was terrible – while making exactly zero dollars per hour. Now, however, I’m getting paid to do the same thing, plus the B.O. is gone! (My theory is that all of my deodorant-deficient peers eventually went on to work for the government, in which case, assuming one of them reads this, I’m definitely getting audited in the near future.)

I guess what I’m trying to say is that no matter the allure of the past, do your best to be happy with where you’re at now. It may not be your glory days, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, you may be surprised at just how far you’ve come.

However, you also shouldn’t be afraid to indulge in a little nostalgia now and then, as it can be fun in small doses. In fact, I could probably be persuaded after several Mountain Dews to recall a few good SDC stories, such as the time we unknowingly tried to charge the priest two dollars when he pulled into Saint Al’s parking lot to administer a service to his flock.

Choosing My Spirit Animal

Recently, I was at a social gathering where the conversation turned to determining each attendee’s spirit animal. Now, this is a topic that I’d never spent much time, if any, considering in the past, and it immediately piqued my intellectual curiosity, by which I mean I instantly began to hope that somebody would end up being a duck-billed platypus. (Unfortunately, it never happened.)

When the focus turned to me, I sort of knew what was going to happen, and sure enough, it didn’t take long before I was dubbed a bald eagle.

I get it, I get it. A BALD eagle. Talk about your low-hanging fruit.

Now, I fully realize that I should be happy with the selection. After all, the bald eagle is synonymous with strength and courage, not to mention it’s a symbol of our country. However, it still seemed like an uninspired choice, and more importantly, it just didn’t feel like me.

A few days later, being a bald eagle was still on the back of my mind. (The back of my mind, for the record, has an awful lot of free time on its hands.) By then, I’d become convinced that I was something else. For one thing, I don’t like fish. For another, I’m not big on heights. Plus, I always clip my nails before they have a chance to turn into talons. And so, with the topic weighing heavily on my mind, I brought up the matter to a couple of good friends, and I mentioned to them that one of the suggestions before bald eagle had been owl.

Almost immediately, both of them agreed that I was much more an owl than I was a bald eagle. I asked them why, and the general consensus was that owls are deliberate and wise, which seemed to fit me pretty well. (Now, I must admit that I have a sneaking suspicion they were using “wise” and “old” interchangeably, but sometimes you just have to take what you can get.)

An owl. I liked it. It felt right. I mean, after all, who did the kid turn to in order to figure out how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? Why that fountain of knowledge himself, Mr. Owl!

The next day, on a whim, I decided to do some research on owls. (Hmm…now that I think about it, most of my mind has an awful lot of free time on its hands.) This was when I found the following:

“Are owls the smartest birds? According to trainers that work with them, not by a long shot. Parrots are easy to train and can have extensive vocabularies. Hawks can be taught to retrieve objects. Even pigeons are used in behavioral studies and can be conditioned to obtain a reward by carrying out certain actions. But most species of owls can't be trained to do even the most rudimentary tasks.”

Uh-oh. Maybe being a bald eagle wasn’t such a bad thing.

Reading on, I discovered that owls really aren’t wise at all. They just look wise. For one thing, they have large eyes, which helps them to appear intelligent. For another, since those eyes are located on the front of their faces, they have to turn their heads in order to see anything not right in front of them, which makes it look like they're wisely taking in all aspects of their surroundings, even if they're just trying to figure out where they dropped their car keys.

At first I was a bit disappointed. My spirit animal was a fraud! However, it soon dawned on me that I actually am kind of an owl. I mean, I’ve been in the workforce for over a decade now, with no clue as to what’s going on, and I’m quite certain I’ve made it this far only because I do my best to look like I know what’s going on. Here are a few of my owlish secrets:

1.) Always carry around a notepad. (Mine is usually filled with doodles, but nobody has to know that.)

2.) Whenever you’re away from your desk, stride meaningfully about, like you’re about to swoop in and put an end to some company-wide crisis. (Even if you’re only on your way to the vending machine.)

3.) Always squint like you’re thinking deeply about some ultra-important matter of high importance. (Even if you’re just trying to figure out where you dropped your car keys.)

And so, I eventually came to the conclusion that an owl was a pretty good fit for me after all. Case closed!

Except then I went and tempted fate by taking two quizzes on the internet that claim to determine one's spirit animal, and according to them I was:

1) A lion.
2) A buffalo.

The heck with it. I’m sticking with owl. I mean, hoo believes anything they read on the internet, anyway?

Thoughts On Facial Hair

Roughly eight months ago, I decided to grow some facial hair, and for the record, it wasn’t a decision I took lightly. In fact, it was something I’d been resisting for quite some time. Let me explain. As most of you may know, I’m what’s considered in the more intellectual circles to be “folically challenged” (and “bald as a cue ball” in others), and as a result, over the last few years I’ve taken to shaving my head. Now, at some point I realized that a lot of men in the same situation as me seemed to have grown facial hair in order to sort of even things out, and so, because I’m a very stubborn person, I quickly decided that I was never going to become one of them. Heck no, I’d accept my fate with dignity! I wasn’t going to freak out and overcompensate by growing some massive beard that would instantly make operating pencil sharpeners, paper shredders, and even rogue can openers, a potentially dangerous activity that could land me on YouTube as a viral sensation.

But then, as time passed, I came to realize two important things. The first was that shaving one’s head is quite time consuming, not to mention incredibly boring. (If you’ve never done it, I highly recommend you give it a try, even if you’re female. It’ll allow you to get a better understanding of where I’m coming from here, and I can also laugh at you hysterically the next time we cross paths.)
The second, and more important, thing that I realized was that my head was just plain boring, by which I mean it sort of looked like a giant big toe that wore glasses.

I soon reasoned that facial hair would help to mitigate both problems. I’d have less shaving to do in total, and it’d also give my face another dimension. (The dimension of fuzz.) It was still a tough decision, but after much deliberation, which included several pros and cons lists, multiple Venn diagrams, a few rough sketches, and at least one flowchart, I finally decided to make my move.

Now, growing facial hair is always embarrassing, because at first it just seems like you’re too lazy to shave more than once a week. However, I circumvented this issue by growing mine while on vacation. It was a tactically brilliant move – probably ranking somewhere in my personal Top 10 –  with the only downside being that everybody on the Oregon coast and northern California now thinks that I’m too lazy to shave more than once a week.

Still, it was worth it, because this simple act begat incredible results, basically transforming me into an entirely different person! No longer was I a giant big toe that wore glasses! No, that was but a thing of the past! Instead, I’d been transformed into – and please keep in mind here that this went well beyond my wildest dreams – a giant big toe with glasses that had forgotten to wipe away a smudge of dirt! Now if that’s not progress, I don’t know what is!

And so, as you can probably guess, eight months later I’m pretty satisfied with my decision. In fact, as a bonus, I’ve also discovered that facial hair has a couple of additional advantages I hadn’t even known about. First, I strongly believe that it makes me look tougher, as I now seem to be scaring more children than usual, and second, it can be used as an impromptu mop in a pinch. (And don’t even get me started on its usefulness as a steel wool replacement.)

On the flip side, however, I’ve also discovered it has one big disadvantage, which is that it’s basically a giant magnet for foreign particles, such as food, insects, and small pieces of building material. It’s gotten to the point where I know it’s just a matter of time before I end up having the following conversation:

Person A: Wow, your beard is really turning gray!
Me: (surprised) It is?                                                              
Person A: Yeah, and it happened quick, too! Like over the last few days!
Me: Hold on…wait a minute…let me see here…nope, that’s just toothpaste!
Person A: Ewww!
Me: Say, why is your name Person A, anyway?
Person A: I’m leaving.

But still, I believe that overall it’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience, and I’m quite certain that I’ll stick with it. Just as long as you do me a favor and let me know when I need to wipe away the toothpaste. Thanks in advance.

On Favorite Shirts

Most of us have a favorite shirt. You know the one; it’s comfortable, roomy, and slimming, and when you put it on you feel like everything is right with the world. In addition, since we tend to hang on to our favorite shirts as long as we can, there’s also a pretty good chance that it’s incredibly old and falling apart, to the point where if you were to give it to a homeless man for clothing, he’d probably cringe and use it for nothing more than blowing his nose.

Personally, I don’t remember many of my favorite shirts from my childhood. However, I do recall that once my mom made me a Spider-Man costume for Halloween that I thought was the best thing ever, and I think I wore it for many days afterwards. So I assume I was a super-hero shirt guy. Also, this picture tends to support that theory:

As an adult, my favorite shirts have tended to come from concerts that I’ve attended. One was purchased at the Alabama Farewell Tour stop in Milwaukee. It was actually a pretty cheesy shirt, as it included a giant picture of all four band members on the back, but I still loved it, and I wore it all the time. Eventually, however, after many years it basically fell apart, and if I ever wore it in public after that, people assumed that I’d either survived a plane crash or had just escaped from being buried alive, and they kept trying to take me to the hospital. So, unfortunately, I had to retire it.

Luckily, I’ve been able to replace it with a shirt I bought at a Blackhawk concert. For those of you who don’t know, Blackhawk was a semi-popular band back in the nineties who’s still touring to this day, despite the fact that they’re getting pretty old. (We’ve started to call them “Fathawk”) Still, they put on a darn good show, and so, during a concert I attended in the Twin Cities a few years back, I felt obliged to buy one of their shirts, and it’s turned out to be one of the better moves of my life. (Maybe that says more about my life than it does the shirt.)

I’m not sure why I like it so much. Perhaps it’s the simplicity, as it’s all black, save the stylized word “Blackhawk” and a small logo on the front. It’s definitely a lot less gaudy than the Alabama shirt, which was purchased during my younger and wilder days. Since then, however, as I’ve grown older, I’ve become drawn to blending into my surrounding, as opposed to sticking out, and the Blackhawk shirt is a good reflection of that soon-I’ll-be-a-cranky-curmudgeon-nobody-wants-to-associate-with attitude.

However, there is a bit of a problem. You see, even though the Blackhawk shirt is pretty low-key, I still feel like I’m past the age where I want to walk around advertising a musical act. (The exception to this rule is my George Strait hoodie, but you have to make exceptions when it comes to George Strait.) So, I never actually wear the Blackshirt shirt unless it's under flannel or sweatshirts, which means that nobody actually ever sees it. Now, this is totally fine with me, but I just find it a bit ironic that my favorite shirt is one that nobody knows exists.

Anyway, I guess the point I’m trying to make is that if you ever see me wearing a flannel or a hoodie, feel free to ask me if I’m wearing the Blackhawk shirt underneath. If you do, then I’ll know that you actually read this blog, and I’ll probably give you a big hug for being so supportive.

So until then, Goodbye Says it All!

My 2014 Christmas Letter

Dear friends, family, and random people of the internet,

I’ve yet in my life to write a Christmas letter recapping the events of the year, and so I’ve decided that it’s about time I gave it a whirl. (In addition, I also hope to gift somebody a fruitcake, watch the movie “A Christmas Story,” and participate in an Ugly Sweater party. Yes, my plan is to become a walking Christmas cliché.)

Knowing very little about writing Christmas letters, I’ve turned to the internet for help, specifically an article that boasts “seven tips for sparkling Christmas letters,” because who wants to be the author of a Christmas letter if it’s anything but sparkling? Not me!!

And so, without further ado, I now present to you My 2014 Christmas Letter, inspired by seven random tips from the internet:

Tip 1: Start off on a positive note, not a whimper about the passage of time.

Hooorrrayyy!!!!! I made it through 2014 without getting Ebola! Also, not once did I get mauled by a bear, dumped overboard from a moving freighter, or forget my car while going through a carwash!!!! I’m not sure I could even ask for anything more!!

Tip 2: Write in your own voice. You'll bring a breath of fresh air--and a happy echo of your own personality--to your letter.

Avast matey! In addition to what was already said, this year I also killed the white whale, avoided walking the plank, and got a new peg leg! Unfortunately, I also got scurvy, but I still pulled through! Note to self: Eat more oranges in 2015! Arrrrrrrrrr!

Wait, that’s not my voice… hold on for a minute, and let me see if I can find it…

Well, pilgrims, it’s sure been one of the rootinist, tootinist years ever! In fact, I plum can’t remember one that’s ever been better! Heck, I don’t think I was even caught in a single stampede!

Dang it! Hang on… one more try…

Christmas? CHRISTMAS?! Bah! Humbug!

Never mind. I’d better move on to the next tip…

Tip 3: Keep your audience in mind.

Uh-oh. I have no idea who my audience is, or what they’d want to hear from me. Self-absorbed pontifications that go on seemingly forever? Childish booger jokes? Meandering anecdotes with no point? Who knows? So, I guess I’ll just skip ahead to…

Tip 4: Resist the urge to embellish.

I need to be honest with you: While it was a pretty good year, based solely on the fact that I’m still alive, I actually accomplished little that I’m particularly proud of. I mean, I guess I grew facial hair, but that’s about it. Oh, and I almost always remembered pants when leaving the house. But really, there’s not much more.

Tip 5: Be selective about photos. One or two great shots that illustrate your text are much better than an over-the-top photo barrage.

I went on one trip in 2014. Here’s a picture of a deserted airport runway that I got to walk on during a hike in Oregon. It was pretty cool:

Also, since it’s been a while since I’ve done this, here’s a picture of a slug I once took, even though it has nothing to do with 2014.

Tip 6: Make it personnel. Be sure that the recipient can feel your warm--and personal—regard.

Before I forget, I’d like to express my warmest and most personal regards to each and every one of you who has taken the time to read this letter.

Tip 7: Shorter is Sweeter:

Well, it seems to me that this is plenty long enough. So, see ya later!

Oh, and Merry Christmas!