Road Trip in the USA

Road Trip, Y'all

This past week, the wife, kids and I took a road trip up to my moms' house in Big Rapids, Michigan.  It was a very nice trip full of relaxation, day beers and food, sleeping and showering and lazing around.  So it was a lot like home, just a few hundred miles north of normal.  The drive up there and back is a decent one, better than going to Wisconsin, that's for sure.  I've decided that Indiana isn't the worst state to drive through anymore.  Illinois is much worse, having now driven through each a few times.  Illinois is very flat and boring. Indiana has a few hills, a few more towns, but is still pretty boring.  The ride home was a bit more shitty because my data from AT&T got throttled sometime this week so I couldn't stream music from my phone.  Not the biggest deal in the world, but not making things easier.

The best thing I found on our drives was our stops.  On the way up, we stopped at a McDonald's in the South Bend area and on the way home we stopped at a Hardee's in the (Oh I don't know) middle of Indiana area.  At both places I saw an interesting phenomena.  Breakfast Clubs.  Does every fast food restaurant in America have these people?  These folks that turn up at the crack of dawn every day to shoot the shit about the boringness of their lives and their towns?  It happens everywhere!  All these old-timers get together and eat fatty food and drink mediocre coffee.  I suppose it's an easy and cheap way to stay social, so I guess I can't knock them for having friends.  Meeting at a fast food place seems convenient, I suppose.  I don't know, it just seems like they all got a memo or something.

In particular, I want to talk about our amazing stop at the Hardee's in god-knows-where Indiana Friday morning.  My phone wouldn't connect to any network for no goddamn good reason, so I wasn't able to actually look at a map so see where we were, but it really didn't matter.  This could have been anywhere in the USA.  It was so perfect.

We sat at an empty table near the front of the restaurant.  I went up and ordered, and I was tempted to ask the local next to me where exactly we were.  I assumed he was local by the work clothes and beard.  After careful consideration, I decided I didn't want to have a conversation with this man, and like I said, it didn't matter where we were, it all looked familiar anyway.  I got food for me and the daughter and sat down and started to eat.  That's when one old man, two old man, three old man four old man start to sit in the tables near us, progressively filling in the area closer and closer to where we sit.  Next around the corner comes fifth old man, and he realizes he doesn't have a place to sit in what I can assume is their regular spot because there's me and my family.  None of the old men seemed to bothered by our presence, but you could also feel that we were in their spot.  No harm done there, but I just found it fun that these old men had routine and we were messing with it.

There were two other patrons in this Hardee's that caught my attention.  A younger looking man and woman, perhaps in their thirties.  They looked like every man and woman who is either a regular or an employee of every dive bar in every small town in America.  The dude had on a leather coat, had big gold hoops in his ears, military buzzcut hair-do, jeans.  He looked like he was in shape at one point in his life, and still was not bad, physique-wise.  He probably plays guitar in an "alt-metal" cover band.  The girl he was with had on the tight, low-waisted jeans with the jewels on her ass pockets, tight white tank top that showed the cleavage.  Short girl, a-line bob haircut that was dyed an unnaturally consistent dark color that I'm 99% sure was done in her bathroom sink.  Beer gut.  Not unattractive, yet certainly no model.  I felt sort of at home around these two, even though I was no where near them and even though none of my friends or even acquaintances looked particularly like them.  They looked like they belonged at Rookies in Negaunee.  I feel like I've seen them before.  I sort of found it odd that these bar patrons were out getting breakfast at 6:30 am on a Friday, but hey, maybe it was a long night of But Light drinkin'?

The whole thing, the breakfast club old guys and the party time thirtysomethings, it all reminded me that no matter where you are, no matter what time of day it is, people are the same everywhere you go.  I find something comforting in that fact.

Other random observations from the road, we noticed that there are a lot of towns in Indiana named after places you'd rather be other than in Indiana.  Places like Nashville, Kokomo, Plymoth, Warsaw, Peru, Austin, Underwood, Columbus.  Anywhere but Indiana.

I also saw an amazing mullet in Kentucky.  Shocker, I know.

But overall, the drives were okay.  They sucked, but they were okay.  The kids handled it like champs.  The wife, who couldn't sleep because of the position of her seat because of car seats, handled it like a champ.  It was a wonderful trip, and I can't wait to do it again.  And you better believe I'll be stopping for breakfast.

Executive Cut (feat. Conor Adams) by Enemies

Well I haven't posted a song in a while, have I?  Let's change that in a real hurry.  About 30 seconds into the song I've posted today, I was doing the "oh shit yeah" face. I knew instantly I had to come here share it.  As I was copying the link to embed the song here, the song got even better!  Oh man, there is no better feeling than hearing a new song for the first time and absolutely falling in love.  I'd never heard of this bad before, but my newest favorite record label, Top Shelf Records posted on their site that they had signed this band.  They're called Enemies and they're from Ireland.  Perhaps it's the drummer in me that caused me to love this so instantly, but whatever the case may be, this is a fantastic song, and it's available as a free download on their bandcamp page.

Or you can download it right here on Bloggerated.com, yo.

Please enjoy this song. I wish I could be so lucky as to be in this band, or perhaps a band that sounded like it.

Twitter Book Club

For the most part, you could say that after the first 30 years of my life, you wouldn't really categorize this blogger as much of a "reader."  I read approximately one quarter of the assigned books throughout K-12.  That's a rough estimate, the real number may be closer to 15%.  Anyway, you get the picture.  I did go through, what I assume all kids went through in 1994, a Goosebumps phase, where I read about 30 of those books.  But after about 8 of them, you sort of caught on to R.L. Stein's patterns of characters and plots.  Pretty much the same book over and over, just with a different monster or thing.  Not the point here, though people.  I'm not here to talk about how awesome Goosebumps books were, no, I'm here to talk about how good I am at reading books.

I'm like a 3rd grader finishing his first Judy Bloom (or Goosebumps) book when I finish one.  I feel so accomplished.  Afterwards, I go to the internet and read what other people thought of the book and I'm extra proud that a lot of the time, people had the same formulations about the book as I did.  Sometimes, I wonder if I really know what makes a good book or not.  After all, I'm not much of a reader, and I'm not really all that smart.  I've been reading books here and there from our Library for the past year and half.  Some I loved, some I've completely hated and returned (Yiddish Policemen's Union, Telegraph Avenue, Life of Pi).  Some I liked enough to finish, but not enough to recommend.  Some I can't stop thinking about. 

When my good friend Tagan decided to start a Twitter Book Club a few weeks ago, I said I would participate under one condition; No Shitty Books.  So, she let me pick the first book for everyone to read.  Uh oh, what have I done?  I need to look smart and sophisticated  so I better recommend one of the higher-brow books I've read recently.  No, no, all those books were mediocre (Night Train to Lisbon, A Sense of an Ending.)  Okay well what about one of the shorter books I've read that will be over quickly (We the Animals, Sunset Park)  No, No those books were three stars at best.  What about a book that takes place during World War II, where two boys go on an adventure seeking a dozen eggs?  Bingo.  

In reality, it was a rather easy call what to pick.  City of Thieves by David Benioff is one of the best books (if not the best) I've ever read.  But just because I loved it, will others like it? " What a dummy!"  they'll exclaim.    Perhaps they'll like it, too.  And that's my goal.  To show others stuff that I've enjoyed.  

So I went to the library to check out City of Thieves again for the Twitter Book Club and couldn't find it, so I grabbed another book of short stories by the same author.  Close enough, right?  

So if you want to join our Twitter Book Club, hit me or @TaganElizabeth up on Twitter.  There's a Facebook group as well, but I don't understand how that would work if you were a stranger.  At the very least, go to the library and see if they have a copy of City of Thieves by David Benioff.  If's a real good story you won't be able to put down.  

P.S. Cool invention idea.  Make a book jacket made out of super glue or some other super sticky substance so when you pick up the book, you litterally can't put it down.  Okay, that's all.  

Happy reading.  

Happy April!

I wish I had more time and motivation for this blog. Sorry. 

Adjusting to the New Life

First off, it's been too long, and I know I need to write something because I have this nagging feeling in the back of my head that I need to write something.  Also, I can keep checking my Google Adsense account all I want, It's not going to go up, money-wise, if I don't produce any content!  Duh!

What can I say?  2013 is turning out to be on hell of a year.  Good and bad.  Of course, if you read my post last month about my dad, that happened.  Then on the 13th of this month (March) my second child was born, a boy, named Miles.  He's wonderful and healthy and hungry and cute and he has all kids of hair on his head and he likes to sleep a lot.  He's a newborn, what can I say?  So of course my life gets a bit flipped upside down, with new routines and keeping the daughter happy and keeping the wife who's home on maternity leave happy, and keeping myself happy, as well.  I hate to be selfish in this time because it really isn't about me right now.  But there certainly is a part of me that knows I must keep myself in a good place in order to keep everyone else in a good place.  Evie has been a bit whinier lately, and I know it's because of Miles, so I'm trying to show here that daddy still loves her so, so much and give her special time with me.  I can't do a whole hell of a lot for Miles at this point, except hold him and tell him I love him and that I'm his daddy.  He's 11 days old now, it's not like he can really respond to anything I tell him anyway.

I can tell it's been a while since I've blogged because I can't type worth a shit.

So we do cleaning and sleeping and showering and sleeping some more.  It's not that exciting, really.  It's exciting in the fact that I have a baby boy at the house, but it's really just a lot of adjusting at this point.  I'm sure soon enough we'll fall into what will be the new normal and I'll forget what life was like before Miles was ever born, just like now I can't remember what life was like before Evie was here.  What the hell was the point to living before the kids?

Life is good right now, and I need to tell myself that more often.  I also should tell all of you millions of readers that more often as well.  It's not that hard to open the laptop and say hey.  As we go through not only adjusting my own new life, also adjusting to Miles' new life as well.  and Evie's new life and Bethany's new life and everything that comes along with it.  Exciting times.  2013, man.  What else you got for me?

My Morning Is Ruined

I like coffee.  No, I love coffee.  I've talked about this before, and I'm actually rather specific about how I make and drink my coffee.  It has to be right.  It has to be good, quality beans, freshly ground by me, and made with the correct ratio of water to grounds.  It has to be made in a relatively clean environment   I know what I'm doing when I make coffee, and if something is off, it makes me upset.

I work in an area where there is a coffee maker that is shared by others.  These others absolutely do not share my love for a quality cup.  There is a massive can of "Country Roast" Folgers bullshit in the back here, that the day shift guys make every day, and it's absolutely the pinnacle of gross.  It's stale, it's smelly, it's cheap and it's worthless.  The part that bothers me is it's smelly, and it makes the coffee maker smell like shit.  I got the point where I couldn't take it anymore and bought my own basket that I use to put my quality grounds and make my coffee here at work.  I kept it hidden in a spot in a cabinet here at work, and no one bothered it.  I took their smelly, nasty basket out, and put my rather less smelly basket in and make my coffee.  It's a little thing that makes my life at work bearable 

Moments ago, I went to make my delicious pot of coffee with my basket that I keep hidden, and it was gone.  This is the worst thing to happen since... I don't know, maybe ever?  What the hell?  Who got rid of my stuff?  Don't touch my stuff, man.  I'm pissed!

So I had to take their nasty basket and took it to the kitchen area and scrubbed it until it didn't have a bunch of crusty old coffee film on it.  I've used it and my coffee is brewing now.  I'm sure it will taste like shit, but it's what I have to do now that someone stole my things.  I'm so upset.

Have a good day, but know that my morning is now ruined.

#firstworldproblems 

Vloggerated 2-25-13