Mister Mister

There were two men in my teens that were instrumental in making me who I am today. Depending on what you think of me as a person, you can either credit them or blame them for that. (The Wife chooses to blame them, if that gives you any indication as to her thoughts on the matter.) No, I’m not referring to my dad, an influential teacher, coach, pastor or even an athlete. Those are all obvious choices, but failed to have the impact of these two gentlemen that, honestly, I don’t know a lot about.

Not Mr. Jones

The first I simply knew as Mr. Jones. He was a bit older than me. We didn’t do a lot together as he was usually did find time to talk to me, we’d end up telling each other fairy tales about this or that. Often they’d devolve into dreams of being famous and looking at the moving picture box in hopes that’d we’d see ourselves looking back at us.

I’m not sure what happened to Mr. Jones. We lost touch in the mid-90s and I haven’t heard from him sense. I assume he eventually found that beautiful woman he was always staring at. Of course, it’s possible he got eaten by a lion as he was trying to pass as a cat. Either way, the man had a profound impact on my life despite the fact neither of us ended up as big stars.

Mr. Wendal

The other was a man known to me as Mr. Wendal. I honestly couldn’t tell you if Mr. Wendal was his first or last name. He was simply known to everyone he met as Mr. Wendal. I’d dare say he might be like Sting or Bono and only have one name. Anyway, Mr. Wendal could be considered the crazy guy like the ones with the sandwich boards proclaiming “The End is Near” with his talk warning us about our ways. A lot of people didn’t bother to get to know him, which was their loss. I’d buy him lunch and he’d drop knowledge on me like Randy Jackson drop names on American Idol.

I don’t know what happened to Mr. Wendal either. I got busy and our weekly meetings seemed to end. Sadly, Mitch Albom stole my idea and met with some guy named Morrie on a weekly basis and turned it into a best-selling book.  Maybe he and Mr. Jones met and became famous, but nationally or internationally, but that seems unlikely as I haven’t heard of them as a duo and a Google search for the two together turns up nothing. So I guess it’s safe to say they’ve both faded into obscurity.

Unlike U2, I found what I was looking for

What a long, strange trip it’s been

Do good things,
good things happen

One of my favorite episodes of My Name is Earl relays the story of how he won $100,000 in a scratch off lotto ticket and in his excitement and zeal, runs into the street where he is hit by a car resulting in the ticket embarking on a journey through the fictional town of Camden. Willie the one-eyed mailman could have gotten the ticket if he had better depth perception. Joy, Earl’s ex-wife, could have had it if she hadn’t been so busy stealing a movie from the video store return box (I’m not sure Problem Child 2 was ever worth the $3.50 rental price it cost in Camden.) Didi, the one-legged woman almost got it, but instead the wind blew the ticket right past a triple-amputee and she ignored the ticket to fall in love. Eventually, the wind blew it back to Earl’s hotel where he found it while he was taking trash to the dumpster.

I like to think that’s similar to the journey my iPod took over the past few days. It started last Sunday when I took it with us on a drive to show a friend of ours around Wilmington. Normally, I don’t take it in the car unless I’m going to or from preschool to pick up Mini-Me. But he’d just woken up from a nap and is usually cranky, so I figured some Raffi and some Wheels on the Bus would make the little excursion a little more bearable for him.

UNC-Wilmington

Fortunately for us, it did (though unfortunately, the strawberry farm we were going to pick strawberries at was closed due to massive crowds the day before.) So after a tour of Wilmington and of the campus The Wife works at, we made our way back to our apartment. I left my iPod in the car and we apparently left the car unlocked. It wasn’t something I typically did, but it wasn’t all that uncommon either. On that Monday, our friend leaves and a few minutes later, I went to my car to get my iPod to download the latest Fantasy Focus podcast. (yes, really) Once I opened the door, I noticed something wasn’t right. First, our GPS was missing. Second, there was some loose change strewn about. I called The Wife to ask if she took our GPS for some reason. She didn’t. So next I went back to get my iPod only to find it, too, was no longer there.

I called the police, not expecting anything more than the police to take a report and use the incident as one of the thousands they receive each year to set patrol patterns. But as the officer who took the report was getting ready to leave, she said to expect a call from a WPD detective within the next five minutes. He did, indeed, call to say that someone had tried to pawn my iPod, but because the person was acting suspicious, the pawn shop wouldn’t take it. But he was 99-percent sure it was mine and figured the thief would try to pawn it somewhere else.

From there, the trail gets a little murky. The detective called every pawn shop in Wilmington trying to see if our bandit continued his tour of selling my iPod. But alas, it wasn’t to be. So the trail went cold, or so I assumed. But as the officer told me when I initially field the report, “he has to be right all the time, we just have to be right once to catch him.”

The dog did not play a
role in recovering my iPod

At some point, our not-so-bright scoff-law stole a car from Wilmington and was spotted in the neighboring county. He was pulled over and arrested and when they searched the car, they found quite a few items that didn’t belong to him, though my iPod wasn’t one of them in the car. Eventually, they called the Wilmington detective working my case and let him know what they found and he asked if the crook had an iPod on him. They said he did and the detective told them to take it from him because it was stolen. That was my iPod.

I met with the detective Tuesday to get my iPod back. I thanked him as I signed the paperwork and he told me they’d be charging the guy with my theft as well as a multitude of others. I told him I was genuinely surprised they were able to recover my iPod and he said sometimes you just get lucky. Apparently this time was one of my times.

When I was about to tell The Wife what I learned from this, she said, “lock your car and don’t leave your iPod in it.” That’s a crazy lesson that ‘s not applicable to anyone. Instead, I learned that if you’re going to leave your iPod in your unlocked car to be stolen, make sure it’s stolen by someone who will later steal a car and later get arrested with your iPod in his possession.

There's No Crying In Baseball

And we would especially like to welcome all the representatives of Illinois's law enforcement community that have chosen to join us here at Expecting The Spanish Inquisition at this time... 

Song 23: Don’t Cry

Artist: Guns ‘N Roses

If you ask The Wife, I don’t have any emotions, or thoughts, or mechanical knowledge, or a strong stomach, or a desire to learn to cook or any number of things that would make me a useful member of society. Rather than focusing on all of those at this time, we’ll just focus on my lack of emotions. Because I tend to only shed tears when networks set sports season retrospectives to music or when The Wife punches me in the face while we’re both asleep, I’ve got the reputation for not having emotions. Well, that and during one of the songs at our wedding I asked my new bride how she thought my fantasy baseball team was doing rather than something more appropriate, like how the Cubs were doing that day.

Longtime readers are now likely expecting a lengthy list of humorous items that I claim have made me cry in the past. But not today. Mostly because I just finished a listing post, and they’re harder to write than you would think (or maybe not, I don’t know how hard you think those are to write), but also because I’m lazy and want something easy to write.

I want the ability to cry on demand. There, I said it. Women seem to possess this ability and can use it whenever they want pretty much get whatever they want. Granted, women also have boobs and those also tend to enable women to get what they want as well, but I’m ok not having boobs. But crying on demand, that seems like an incredibly valuable skill to possess. To be able to emotionally manipulate people around you to letting you have your way seems nice.

But as with any great power, it comes with great responsibility. Those who possess this power run the risk of overusing it, thus rendering those around them immune to the perceived anguish. Cry once because you’re truly upset that he got you chocolates instead of flowers and should have known you were on a diet and buying her candy was on par with running over her childhood pet and you’ll get both flowers and chocolate. Do it every time and you’ll be lucky you don’t get the orange and black candy from Halloween that everyone hates and ragweed on the next important day.

I imagine if I could cry on demand, I would overuse it. I’d turn on the faucet each time I didn’t get to watch what I wanted on television or whenever I had to go to one of The Wife’s work functions that conflicted with me doing pretty much anything else. I’d also use it when I didn’t want to take the dog out or when I didn’t feel like getting up to refill my glass with a tasty beverage.

So it’s probably for the best I can’t cry on cue. I mean, I don’t think other professional teams would care if I was crying each time the Cubs lost in an effort to make them feel sorry for me and let the Cubs win the next day. Besides, I’ll just cry the Cubs have their season retrospective, which sadly is scheduled for the last day of the regular season every year.

Next Song: Leaving

Artist: Hootie and the Blowfish

Lost in space

Song 22: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Artist: U2

I was picking up dog poop
while my wife was here.

Ok, so I’ve been gone for a long while. Judging from the amount of phone calls, texts, tweets and facebook messages I’ve received on the issue, I can tell that you haven’t missed me. Or maybe you’ve just been as busy as I’ve been. I don’t want to make excuses, but I will. Long story short, my wife has been working, a lot. And when she hasn’t been working, she’s been in New Orleans where she was partying, a lot. All this left me to tend for a two-and-a-half year old completely on my own for essentially two weeks.

If I had an actual job in which I interacted with adults, this might not be such a big deal, but I don’t, so the overwhelming majority of my human interactions are with someone who still poops his pants and needs me to tend to practically his every need. While not physically demanding (though they do put the lids on Play-doh a little tighter than I feel is necessary), it is mentally exhausting to feign excitement over finding “super letters” or one of “Blue’s Clues” for hours on end. Because of that, I didn’t have the ability to be humorous while The Wife was gone.

“But Luke,” you say, “You weren’t funny when The Wife was around.” Ok, two things. First off, when did you start calling her “The Wife?” I just started that. And secondly, that’s a fair point. But nevertheless, I’m going to try again. Starting with this blog. Or the next one, we’ll see how this goes.

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. That is just one of the many things I've been seeking over the years that I've yet to finally locate. Among them:

Someone who actually remembers the last time the Cubs won the World Series.

Anyone roughly my age who didn't enjoy Nickelodeon's Hey Dude.

A way to ensure it doesn't rain when I have outdoor plans.

Any legitimate reason why New York Yankee games are broadcast on Wilmington, North Carolina's local ESPN Radio affiliate.

A reason to watch American Idol now that Simon left.

My "Man Card" after admitting I watch The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.

A way for any of my fantasy teams to win a fantasy title.

The time to read, listen to and watch all the different types of media I'm interested in.

Any wardrobe that wouldn't be immediately improved by wearing a clock on a long chain a la Flavor Flav.

College football in Wilmington, NC.

Anyone, anywhere who doesn't enjoy at least portions of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

An easy way to remove the random program that The Wife downloaded onto our computer.

ESPN's Bill Simmons to answer one of my questions in his legendary chats.

Some way to hold on to my dwindling sanity.

Any enjoyment whatsoever from the NBA.

Corrolary: Anyone who has admitted to watching a WNBA game on purpose.

Ocean weather in 2011 (though that will be here shortly).

Approval from The Wife for teaching my kid to say "Peace Out" when he's leaving.

Time to watch all the shows I want to watch, read all the books I want to read, listen to all the podcasts I want to listen to, and interact with all the people I want to interact with.

Message received,
Ms. Hathaway's attorney.

Fantasy Update: Not counting the letter from her attorney's demanding I stop contacting her, I still haven't heard back from Anne Hathaway regarding a date I've asked her on. In other fantasy news, my baseball teams are fair to middling as the season gets underway. It's still to early to tell if I am going to horribly suck or just suck regularly. 

Next Song: Don’t Cry

Artist: Guns ‘N Roses

A good walk not spoiled

If you want to take long walks, take long walks.  If you want to hit things with sticks, hit things with sticks.  But there's no excuse for combining the two and putting the results on TV. 
-National Lampoon


Golf is a good walk spoiled
-Mark Twain


Thursday, the wife and I were able to attend one of the most pretegious golf tournaments in the world, The Masters held at Augusta National golf course. This was my fourth time attending, but the wife always had conflicts in the past, so she ended up losing her Masters virginity Thursday. 


Before we get into the details, I want to assure you that despite what is said of patrons (not guests or spectators, we were "patrons") we were not the most knowledgeable golf fans in the world. I very casually follow golf, which is to say I read the headlines on ESPN.com on Monday to see who won. That's pretty much the extent of my golf fandom. And that puts me miles and miles ahead of the wife who gleaned most of her golf knowledge from watching it when we went to my grandmother's house on holidays when golf was on. 


Nevertheless, when you're given an chance to go the The Masters, you don't turn it down. So we woke up dark and early (sadly, it wasn't even bright) and made the 45 minute trek from my grandmother's house (she had the tournament badges) to the course. For most of the trip, the wife was anxiously excited, not knowing what to expect, but eager to experience it. I, too, was excited as it'd been a few years since I'd last been.

Photos don't do the course justice either.

We get in and the wife is slightly more excited than a kid in a candy store. Like everyone else, she's transfixed by how green the grass is, how well maintained the grounds are, and just the vastness of Augusta National. Television does a great job of showing it, but they really can't do justice to how nice the entire place it. So excited was the wife that she said she "wanted to pick an azalea" (despite the fact that we live in a town that has an "Azalea Festival" each year) and wanted to jump into one of the sand traps and make a snow... err sand angel. She also wanted to be able to "smell Phil Mickelson," but not Tiger because "he probably smells like 18 holes."


We make our way around the course, the wife working out ways she can see the golfers she's heard of (which essentially boils down to Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickleson) at the most possible locations regardless of the walking that would entail. Despite my efforts to convince her to stay in one spot and let them come to us, we proceeded to explore the course like we were Lewis and Clark. (You didn't see a history joke coming, did you?)

I need new
goals in life.

We got to see Tiger, Phil and Vijay and pretty much everyone else playing as we were there to see the first group putt on the first hole and we saw the last group playing at the 15th hole. We saw fashion choices that made me wonder why someone would design such pants, let alone why someone would not only buy them, but wear them in a non-ironic way. We met a nice woman whose daughter went to Georgia Southern and another group of women who took the time to explain a lot of golf to the wife and myself. We also did not get to meet ESPN anchor Scott Van Pelt, which has become a goal of mine I feel may never be attained. 



After roughly 10 hours on the course, we called it a day, well that and nature pretty much called it a day by having the sun start to go down. All day long the wife kept telling me I may be in trouble because she may have become a full-fledged golf fan. She asked what it was about live sporting events that causes her to become fans of the sport (she wasn't really a baseball fan until we went to Turner Field and saw batting practice). I don't think she'd let me take her to an NFL game, assuming they play again, because she's fearful she'd start to like that too. 

There's also a pretty good chance I'll have a playing partner in Tiger Woods Golf now, especially if we break down and get the latest version with Augusta National included among the courses. So I've got that going for me.