Game Fuel is a Substitute for Diesel Fuel

At my Dad’s retirement party a while back, I was envious of how many friends he had, and how much they liked him. Not in a mean spirited sort of way, just in a, how did he do that sort of way. He’s not overly outgoing or social, but people generally like him. All the people who had him as a teacher for 8th grade science said how cool and good of a teacher he was.

Perhaps it’s something genetic finally coming out of my DNA, or maybe I’m just aging well, but people seem to be starting to like me more. I wasn’t very likable in high school or college. I didn’t have a large social network of friends. I don’t exactly now, but I’m starting to. My hockey comrades really like the fact that I’m doing the legwork to get this team together. I’ve moved up into their top friends on Myspace as well. (Even though I hate Myspace). My wife’s friends, who are in some ways my friends since they are our friends with children, also have some sort of “friend love” towards me. My work friends are also developing more now that I’m working out in the sandbox. This more relaxed environment puts me more at ease or something.

So in addition to obscenely large eyebrows, an aptitude in the applied sciences, and a tendency to repeat myself in conversations, I’ve inherited my Dad’s general likeability.

Sick and Sore

Everyone in the house other than our carrier monkey son has been sick the last few days. It started Saturday afternoon, aches, tired, stomach. I felt better Sunday and stupidly went to play rat hockey Sunday night. I now feel pretty crappy again.

I once had Mono. It was December ’99. I can easily remember because I was super sick when everyone else was having a great fucking time assuming the world was going to end. I was in a state that I wouldn’t have really cared if it had. I slept for like 23 hours a day, and hobbled painfully into the bathroom and attempted to eat things with my throat almost swollen shut from my tonsils. It was that point in my life that I became pro Euthanasia. If there had been no hope of me ever getting better from the mono, I would have wanted to die. It’s easy to wax on philosophically about the value of life when you’re healthy, wealthy and having fun. Try telling someone struggling to make it to the toilet how great their life is.

I’m nowhere near as bad as I was then, now. I still feel like shit. I really shouldn’t be at work. I’m such a fucking trooper.

There is a storm coming that I don’t know if I have the strength to weather. I hope I can.

The Hockey Sewing Circle

The Players:

Lawryde, Phil, Mike, and Drew: Slightly above average hockey players who played for a couple years on a shit team and a couple years on a good team with two cocky teenagers.

Austin and Nick: The cocky teenagers

Kerry: Nick’s dad, the unofficial captain of the good team

Armstrong: Kerry’s friend and an all around awesome dude who Lawryde, Phil, Mike, and Drew really want on their team.

Stu: A free agent C league player who Lawryde, Phil, Mike, and Drew played with on their shit team a couple years ago.

As I spoke of in previous posts, I’ve been forming a hockey team for winter league. Me and my tattooed comrades were fed up playing with Austin and Nick. They never passed the puck, and were just dicks like teenagers kind of are.

Prior to letting Kerry know we were officially off his team, I called Stu up to see if he would be on our new team. He said yes.

I then emailed Kerry and told him we were starting our own team, no hard feelings, we just wanted the league more competitive.

He calls me up and leaves a message saying hey that’s great, Can Nick and I play on your team?

What the fuck? I email him back and tell him We don’t like playing with Austin and Nick. Nothing personal, they’re just teenagers that have some growing up to do. Kerry emails me back saying he’s not going to play this winter, and most likely Nick won’t either.

Kerry calls up his friend and fellow hockey player Armstrong to cry about us breaking off and not wanting to play with him and Nick anymore. Armstrong is a cool, no nonsense kind of dude and tells Kerry he’s playing B-League this winter and Kerry should just man up and put together a team to play against our team.

Kerry hangs up and calls Stu to try and get him on his team. Stu says he’s committed to Lawryde’s team.

Kerry calls Armstrong back immediately and cries to Armstrong about me taking Stu. Kerry confirms with Armstrong that he’s not playing this summer. I guess Kerry is as about as mature as his 16 year old son only he’s in his 40’s.

I call Armstrong up this afternoon, with the assumption that Kerry is not playing so he is now a free agent, without the knowledge he told Kerry he was playing B-Leauge.

Armstrong says he knows everything already and regales me with the story of Kerry’s conversation with he and Stu.

We chat about Armstrong’s plans for Winter league, and I let him know we have some open spots on the roster, and that we really enjoyed playing with him. At first he says he might play on both leagues. Then after talking more, he’s convinced to play on my team.

Funny shit. Like a fucking soap opera.

I’m stoked for this season.

Plowed in to the Sound

I’ve got all these random things swimming around in my brain.

I’ve got my hockey team pretty much solidified. It’s not going to be as good as I had hoped, but it’s still going to be a solid group of guys. No superstars. After playing well in rat, I feel strong. I want to get stronger and faster and heavier (I’m up to 178 now, 200 is my fighting weight) so I can shut down that little prick Nick. (The kid who won most of the games for us on Orange).

If you’re going to buy a minivan (which we will some time in the future), there are two critical requirements:

1. It has to have a dvd system in it.
2. The back has to be spacious enough so you can fuck comfortably in it.

I can envision my wife and I at a car dealership asking the sales dude to fold all the seats down so we can determine if the back of the minivan is spacious enough for us to fuck.

I need to save money to buy a new hockey bag, and to complete my left arm sleeve. I kind of wanted to incorporate “So it goes”, but I think that would be more appropriate for the central theme or wording for a kick ass chest piece. Maybe, “There is no why”.

I feel satisfied with my job right now. It’s a strange feeling.

I have a mouse, maybe mice, living in my garage. My wife won’t let me kill them. It would need to be catch and release. Maybe I should just leave my cats in the garage one night and let them have at it, let nature run it’s course.

The Rat

I finally manned up last night and went to rat hockey. Rat hockey is pickup hockey that lasts an hour and a half and is generally populated by very good players, mostly B and A leaguers.

I was a bit nervous at first; all of the guys out there were good. I felt better though when I saw a guy warming up who was worse than I was. I don’t know why, but I really don’t like being the worse skater on the ice.

I also haven’t skated for like 3 or 4 weeks so I was expecting to be burnt after one shift. I sat for the start, and it was my turn after about 5 minutes of play. I subbed in on defense. I knew one thing about playing with good players, make sure you skate hard and play like you really want to be there. They don’t like to see people fucking around out there. I was skating hard, and feeling pretty good. My legs felt good. I was playing above my normal skill level so I could actually compete with these guys. I made several really nice defensive plays. (My ass got burned a couple times too.) I even got a couple complements from Mr. Kwon. That’s THE Mr. Kwon, from the A team that bears his name.

This one fast as hell dude was skating down towards me. He makes a move and I force him outside. I’ve got a nice shoulder wide stance so I can move quick, he tries tip the puck through my legs. I glance down and just react and do a little side heal kick and get the puck on my stick. It was awesome. How the fuck did I do that? I can’t do that!

I even ended up with two goals on the night. One was a little wrister that dribbled past the goalie, and the other was a sweet ass one timer. The goalie didn’t have a chance.
Now I know that most of these good players were most likely playing at about 75%, and I was blasting at 100%, but I felt like I could hang with them. After this winter and a few more rat sessions, I’m going to consider playing in B league next summer.

The Devilish Little Boy

“I wake up in the morning, fold my hands and pray for rain, I’ve got a head full of ideas that are driving me insane.”

Carter has become a real dick in the past few weeks. He’s 20 months now. He wants to do things, and wants us to do things for him that he can’t fully express, and he gets frustrated, which in turn frustrates us. It’s a good thing he’s so lovable.

“well, I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you, to be just like them”

I’m putting together a hockey team for the winter league. It’s going to be some dudes at Opposite of Dog I know, and some of my tattooed friends I’ve played with in years past. I somehow feel important since I’m doing the legwork of putting the team together. I think that makes me the Captain.

It’s should be a good solid team, no single fantastic players, a good team. I’m hoping to put something together to face off against the team of younger kids I was playing on. They failed to see the fun in making a nice pass, and just wanted to score a bunch of goals so they’d get a piece of ass from their high school sweeties after the game.

I was listening to a 90’s resurrection weekend on Labor Day, and they played the Might Mighty Bosstones-Never had to Knock on Wood. It reminded my of my high school friend Jay. He really dug(digs) Ska music.

I miss having a friend like him. I still onsider us friends, but he lives two hundred miles away from me. I don’t know that I have time for real in depth friendships anymore. I don’t know, maybe I’m just full of shit.

You become insane from a head full of ideas when you don’t make good on them

I am a travel God

This past weekend my wife’s college roommate got married. The wedding was in Fargo, ND. That’s 670 miles away from Peoria. That’s 11-12 hours of driving. That’s 23 hours out of 72 that I spent driving. Luckily most of it was through the beautiful, wondrous state of Wisconsin.

The weekend really went pretty well. We left at 2 a.m. on Friday. We traveled north to Madison, my favorite city, to pick up The Poop Queen so she could watch Carter during the wedding and we could drink and stay late. By the time we got to Minneapolis, it felt like we should be there. Unfortunately it’s another 4 hours to Fargo.

When we got there we checked into the hotel. When The Poop Queen made reservations, they didn’t have any suites available. I asked them again when we checked in, and they did. It was an extra $60, but it ended up being totally worth it. It had a door that divided the bedroom from the living area so we were able to put Carter to sleep and still do stuff in the other room.

We went to the rehearsal dinner. I was kind of hesitant since I’m completely socially inept, but I took some lessons from the best and put my learning to the test. Mr. Fresh taught me to find something I find mildly interesting about a person and keep asking them questions about it. People always like to talk about themselves and the stupid shit they find interesting. The dinner was good.

The wedding was supposed to be outdoors and it rained like hell the day of. They had a church backup, but the reception was still under tents. It was also pretty cold, like 50 deg.

The wedding was like every other wedding I’ve ever been to, other than my own. The reception was pretty fun. My wife was in the wedding party, so The Poop Queen and I sat with the boy at a table with some fun other people. One of the girls was in her 20’s and was tattooed and pierced. She was fun to talk with.

After I took The Poop Queen and the boy back to the hotel so the boy could go to sleep, I started drinking heavily. I again exercised my new social skills, and, in an affirmation of how good I’d become, got offered some Hash by a dude in the wedding party I had met the day before. I respectfully declined since my wife doesn’t approve of illegal drug use.

As I got more and more drunk I became more philosophical. I waxed on about the nature of time with a dude I knew from college.

Even though it rained, it was a good time.

The next day we had to leave by 9 a.m. since it was another 12 hours home. I felt good, no hangover. I think it was the taco bell the night before after the reception.

When we got home I was exhausted. I still was yesterday.

I’m almost fully recovered now.

Women Swoon Over My Chest Hair

The boy and I were tired out after a Friday night of wine, women, and dancing. (Or something along those lines.)



I really need a chest piece.