wal-mart after midnight…

so on the way back from watching the movie “i love you, man” last night (which was awesome, by the way), i had to stop by wal-mart to pick up some things.  it was about 12:30 a.m., and the parking lot was relatively empty, so there weren’t many people shopping.  that makes wal-mart creepy enough – being in there with barely anyone around, no one bumping into you, no kids running and screaming.  it also could make it kind of nice, if it weren’t for the overnight staff.  i understand that overnight is when they restock the shelves and take care of housekeeping, but the people that have these late night jobs are just plain scary!  even the greeter was a strange old man who was jamming out to tunes on his headphones (which may or may not have been attached to a cassette tape player).  the man pushing the floor buffer was on a mission, and he meant business.  he was probably 85 years old, and he didn’t care one bit if he was in your road, nor did he take to well to having you in his road.

the best part of the whole experience was how every single person stocking the shelves looked at me like i was the strange one.  i know that i am not the most normal person (looks or personality) in the world, but come on…i felt like a guy who walked into a costume party not wearing a costume – and everyone was staring at me because i looked weird.

so yeah, while i like being able to shop in the middle of the night if i need something, i completely understand why most stores are closed when they bring in the freak-show-overnight crew to get ready for the next day of business…

(disclaimer – not every person who was working overnight at the wal-mart was a “freak-show”, however the vast majority were.  it is not my intention to offend anyone, i just want to point out my observations and feelings…)

digital tv switch…

i am tired…so very tired of hearing about this digital tv switch that has been in the works for the past year or however long.

i am especially tired of hearing about how the switch will not affect customers who have cable.  during every commercial break.  while watching cable!  if it isn’t going to affect the customers who have cable, why are they constantly telling us about it?!?

to make my head hurt even more, i don’t know why our government is subsidizing everyone who needs to buy a converter box with $40 coupons…if people want to watch tv, they will pay the cost necessary to do so, and if they don’t then that is their choice.  i know that the government feels “guilty” that they are forcing this change, but aren’t there better ways to spend government funds than to make sure everyone can still watch “desperate housewives” and “judge judy” without missing an episode?  there have been plenty of other things that the government has done that has cost the average citizen way more than $80 or however much a box costs, but i don’t see them dishing out cash for those things.

so, as much as i support obama’s decisions thus far, i am glad that he got shut down on pushing the date back on the switch…i can’t wait until february 17th comes and goes and these stupid commercials can cease…i might pay $90 a month for cable (and internet), but at least i won’t have to miss any episodes of 24! 

post super-bowl fun…

so i was watching the super bowl today (which was one hell of a game, but not the focus of this post), and my friend munn told me about this site where you can obamicon pictures.  what that means is you can take pictures and submit them to this site and it will make it look like the familiar obama posters/stickers/shirts/etc.  so, after the steelers kicked arse, i headed on over to that site, and had some fun…here are the results:

this was my first attempt, and probably the one i am most proud of...

one of coach tomlin...probably could have come up with something more inspirational for the bottom...

third one...nothing spectacular...

i like this one...not a huge santonio holmes fan before tonight, but he earned some respect...

i didn't make this one, but i wish i had...so freaking awesome...the dude definitely does abide...

and finally, the one that i made at the end of my playing around…

maybe not very nice, but it was late, and it is true...

so i like the site…will definitely play around more with it when i have some free time…

diary of a snow day…

5:20 a.m.  phone rings – school is cancelled for the day.

5:25 a.m.  text from colleague asking why school was cancelled today when it wasn’t yesterday when the roads were worse.

5:42 a.m.  just about back to sleep, power goes off then back on, and my ipod docking station turns on by itself playing “woke up this morning” by a3 (the soprano’s theme song).  i thought there was some irony in that, since i wasn’t able to go back to sleep.

5:43 a.m.  turn on computer, check facebook, check email, play some games.

6:21 a.m.  try to go back to sleep, but am still wide awake.

7:20 a.m. look at clock one last time before i finally succeed in going back to sleep.

11:00 a.m.  get a text from steph saying she’ll be over soon.  now  i’m awake again.

11:05 a.m.  get out of bed, go downstairs and have some banana bread and watch some baseball thing on tv with my roommate.

12:35 p.m.  steph gets here.  we eat some soup and sandwiches.

1:10 p.m.  sit around and do a bunch of nothing.

3:35 p.m.  go to grocery store to return movie.

3:45 p.m.  stop in town at coffee shop for a “black and gold” latte and some biscotti.

4:25 p.m.  go to library and check out a book.

4:45 p.m.  stop at video store and pick up a movie that mr. leu talks about all the time – “waitress”.

5:00 p.m.  back home, play some tetris on the wii.

5:50 p.m.  start watching “waitress”.

6:20 p.m.  start typing blog post about the snow day.

pretty exciting, huh?  here’s how the rest of the day will probably play out:

8:00 p.m.  finish movie, eat some leftovers.

8:25 p.m.  sit around and do nothing, maybe watch some tivo.

10:00 p.m. steph will go home.

10:30 p.m.  hop in the shower and get ready for bed.

11:00 p.m. crawl into bed, turn on my ipod to put me to sleep, wondering if we’ll have another snow day tomorrow.

gotta love snow days… 

snow…

here’s a news flash – i hate snow…some of the reasons i hate snow:

• if it’s snowing, that means it is cold, and i don’t like cold.
• cleaning off your car in the morning.
• people forget how to drive because there is snow on the road and/or falling from the sky.
• students are distracted during class because they are preoccupied with thoughts of sled riding down their favorite hill.
• you hope for a snow delay, and when it doesn’t happen (even though all the other school districts around have one) you are grumpy all day.
• it’s cold.
• you track in snow and salt all over your carpet/floor.
• your car is slowly corroding with all the salt/chemicals they put on the roads being splashed up on it.
• salt trucks drive slow and throw large chunks of salt or anti-skid up and chip the paint on your hood and/or crack your windshield.
• shoveling sidewalks and driveways.
• being plowed in by the local road crews.
• you can’t see the lines on the road or parking spaces.
• yellow snow…yuck.
• heating bills go through the roof (along with much of your heat if you don’t have good insulation).
• and did i mention it’s cold?

there are a few redeeming things about snow, and here they are:

• the possibility of snow delays (or cancellations).
• it’s pretty to look at (through the window of your warm home).
• snowball fights.
• skiing.

well there you have it – my feelings on snow…

i’m back…but was i ever really gone?

so to appease the masses (ok, just cliff), i will post something on this blog, and make a semi-concerted effort to post something pointless from time to time so that he has something to read when he’s not busy working, being a dad, and keeping in touch with all of his friends…

really, i have lost touch with the blog thing primarily because i keep in touch with people on facebook much more than on this, but it is kind of fun to write now and again, not knowing who might actually log on and read what i have to say…

the focus of this post will be a food item i just found at the grocery store today.  as many of you (ok, maybe none of you, including cliff) might know, i am allergic to peanuts.  not the “oh my god he touched something that had a peanut on it three days ago and is going to go into anaphylactic shock any second now” kind of allergy.  just the kind that will irritate my esophagus and could eventually kill me…in ten or twenty years.  it is also important to note that i love peanuts and their various bi-products, especially peanut butter.  since finding out that i was allergic to peanuts, among many other foods, i have cut back my intake of these foods significantly.  however, being that i love peanut butter so much, i indulge in a reese’s cup or whatnot from time to time.  i have not, however, had a pb & j sandwich in years.  i have missed them.  until today.

this leads me to the product i found today in the grocery store.  i was lingering a little too long in front of the peanut butter, thinking about buying some, when this caught my eye – soynut butter.  at first i thought there could be no acceptable substitute for my legume-y friend, but i have eaten other soy products and enjoyed many of them (some that i have not – soy milk and tofu – they are not tasty).  so, even though it was six bucks for a 15 ounce jar, i bought it.  upon coming home i promptly opened it, and i have to say, it did not smell like peanut butter (you know how when you open a fresh jar of jif it just fills the air with the aroma of freshly roasted peanuts…i’m getting distracted, sorry).   i then dipped in a finger, and scooped a glob onto my tongue, and it did not taste like peanut butter.  so it didn’t smell or taste like peanut butter, but it wasn’t bad either.  i tried it plain, and it did not offend my tastebuds.  i then combined it with jelly and bread, and it was not a terrible experience at all.  in fact, i kind of liked it.  again, it is not peanut butter, and will never take peanut butter’s place in my heart, but it might just be an acceptable substitute.

so there you have it.  you’ve waited almost a year for a post on this blog, and you got one – and it’s about soynut butter…

wow…

so in case anyone hasn’t noticed, it’s been well over a year since i posted anything here. i feel like i am neglecting the world of blogging, and i’d really like to get things back in order…

a lot has happened in my world since my last post. first and foremost, a major life status change occurred not long after my last post. that status change became official only a few months ago, but it’s finally official. due to said major status change, many other things have happened. i moved…twice…within the same 10 mile radius. i have a roommate again, something i haven’t had since college. i still teach 5th grade, but not science – math. i incurred a large amount of debt while paying for rent and a mortgage for a house i didn’t live in. i went on vacation alone for the first time in my life…kind of strange, but kind of nice. i worked in a grocery store stocking produce for minimum wage on the side. i quit because it wasn’t worth the time or effort, although i kind of enjoyed it, oddly enough. i took a different side job working with autistic kids that pays considerably more and is much more rewarding on good days…much more of a hassle on bad ones. and i am sure many more things that i can’t remember (not to mention don’t want to bring up) have happened since that fateful day back in 2006.

regardless, i hope to keep things more up-to-date here in the world of cafe104…then again, i’ve said that before…

…

so i knew when i started this whole blog thing that i would keep it up for a while, then totally neglect it – kind of like pretty much every other thing i start doing.  at least i can kind of blame the school year starting for my lack of posts…kind of.  maybe over christmas break i’ll post something?

wonders of the canadian west…

from july 3rd to 16th i was on a trip to western canada with a group of 47 kids.  i think i mentioned that in a previous post…anyways, the official title of the trip was “wonders of the canadian west” – a title which i laughed at because, seriously, it’s canada, eh?  well, much to my surprise, our neighbors to the north have quite a bit to offer, at least in b.c. and alberta.  it was a pretty cool trip, and i had the opportunity to do some pretty bizarre stuff while i was there.  the kids were overall pretty cool, too, so that made the trip much more bearable, dare i say even a little more enjoyable.  i won’t bore you with every single detail of the trip (not that it was boring, but it would take forever to write in everything i did in those two weeks), so i will address some of the highlights of the experience.

the first highlight came along the night we arrived in vancouver.  a couple of nights before i left on the trip i talked to my friend cliff, who lives in seattle, and said (half jokingly) “you should come up and visit me when i am in vancouver – seattle isn’t that far from there, is it?”  since it was the day before a holiday, he and his wife liz had the next day off, so they said “why not?” and actually made the 3 hour drive up from washington to hang out.  i got away from the group after the kids were in bed (around 10 p.m. – keep in mind i got up at 4 a.m. eastern time to be at the airport in pittsburgh, which is like 1 a.m. pacific time) and met them on campus and we drove towards town a little and hit a couple of bars and got some tasty pizza at hell’s kitchen - which we just randomly stumbled upon because it was open, but i would totally recommend seeking out if you are ever in vancouver…it was really cool to see them and it gave me the opportunity to feel comfortable that even if the rest of the trip completely sucked, it was worth it to hang out with them.  unfortunately they had to drive back to seattle that night because our plan to sneak them into my dorm room (wow – flashback to grove city) backfired when there was nowhere available for them to park on or near campus.  apparently canadian parking lots/garages close at 7 p.m.  i then crashed at about 3 a.m. (remember what time i woke up – that’s right, it was 26 hours after i got up that i got to go to bed), hoping to get a couple of hours of sleep before i went whale watching the next morning…

so the second highlight would have to be the two nights we spent camping in tipis at head-smashed-in buffalo jump.  this was a pretty cool experience overall.  i thought it would be kind of lame, given the premise (it’s a cliff where buffaloes were herded over in mass-kills by the local indian tribes) and the fact that it was in middle-of-nowhere, alberta, canada…but it turned out to be my favorite part of the whole trip.  our host, trevor, was a blackfoot indian who in the past modeled for guess? jeans and even had small roles in some movies, including the one we watched while we were there called dreamkeepers.  it was a made-for-tv movie, and the special effects were pretty low-budget, but it was a decent flick nonetheless.  trevor was very cool – he told stories around the campfire and was an all-around good person.  since his days of fame are more or less behind him (he might disagree) he spends his days at this museum illuminating tourists to the past and present culture of the first nations people (i like that the canadians refer to them as “first nations people”, not “native canadians” like we do the “native americans”).  he is very dedicated to his work, and was there every day at dawn and didn’t leave til after dark.  so while we were there the kids slept about 8 per tipi, but in my tipi there were only the three male adults, so there was room to spread out some which was nice.  we even got to have a fire in our tipi one night, which was pretty cool.  one of the activities was setting up a tipi, and we got to assemble a tipi from a pile of poles and a piece of canvas with actual blackfoot indians, using their traditional method of putting one up.  i know with how i have summed up the experience it might not seem that amazing , but i will not soon forget my time spent there – it was really awesome.

the third (and final) highlight that i will discuss in detail was meeting cool people there.  i know you’re probably thinking that the only time you hear canadian and cool in the same context is when discussing the temperature.  well, it turns out there are at least a few cool canadians.  our bus driver, jack, was 72 years old, but somehow always managed to get us where we needed to go.  he had a wicked sense of humor, and was always in a good mood.  he made the long bus rides a little more interesting, if for no other reason than we never knew if he knew where he was going or if he was just pretending to know.  the other person that i am glad to have met was aaron, one of our tour guides.  the tour was organized through nomad travel and he was assigned to our group.  he was great with the kids, and had a wealth of knowledge about the things we were seeing.  it was good to have him along on the trip because he and i could carry on a conversation about random things, which was nice considering the other leaders were older and i had less in common with them.  after the first couple of days it was like being on the trip with an old college buddy or something, so that made the trip more enjoyable.  hopefully i will keep in touch with him (but i seem to be pretty terrible at keeping in touch with people these days). 

so, that is just a snippet of my trip.  some of the other things i did on the trip – whale watching in the pacific, rock climbing, hiking to various locations like johnston canyon and bridal veil falls, ascending grouse mountain, ascending sulphur mountain, banff, bathing in the hot springs, camping in tents, the royal tyrell museum, the drumheller badlands, athabasca glacier, ogopogo, making an arrowhead out of obsidian, and probably a dozen other things i have already forgotten.  i didn’t cover any of these things with any detail at all, but maybe someday if i am bored and suddenly remember something crazy about the trip i will post it.

now the question is will i go on another trip like this next summer?  well, it is scheduled to be a trip to hawaii for two weeks…i guess we shall see how i feel when it comes time to make that decision.

home again…

so i have been back in the states now for almost a week, and i think i am caught up on everything that i neglected during my three weeks of travel.  it’s funny how much stuff piles up when you do absolutely nothing for 21 straight days.  kind of puts into perspective what you actually do on a daily basis.

but, after being back for six days, it feels as though i never left.  at first it was kind of a jolt to my cerebral cortex – the influx of mail (mainly bills or junk mail) that i had to contend with was priority number one, but getting caught up on the news was a close second.  i had not read a newspaper, watched television, or been online for the entire three weeks that i was travelling.  apparently a lot can happen in the world in that period of time.  after getting briefed on all the happenings of the previous fortnight and a half i realized why i hate the news – it always is so negative and depressing and anger-inducing…and there is never a thing i can do about any of it.

then i turned on my tivo and saw the plethora of things that it had recorded for me (such a good little dvr…) while i was gone.  being summer, the only things i was tivo-ing were last comic standing (gotta love comics with cerebral palsy) and treasure hunters (a show i thought was going to be about actual archaeology but turned out to be another freaking reality show…and i liked it anyways).  i had about four of each to catch up on, so that was at least 8 hours of my life this week.  but i also have the video blog rocketboom downloaded to my tivo daily to keep up on all the random news that they cover (which is usually much less depressing than the regular news – not to mention only about 4 minutes long).  i was extremely disappointed to find that in my absence they had canned the host of that show, amanda congdon, and replaced her with some chick with a french accent that i find rather annoying.  needless to say, i think i will be cancelling my tivo subscription to rocketboom as a result.  it’s a shame, really. 

well, i will post some interesting (at least to me) tidbits about my travels in separate posts, so if you are interested and/or have time to kill, feel free to read them.