I have a Couple Rhetorical Questions.

The first being, Is it wrong that I find women’s curling mildly erotic? Strange I know, maybe it’s just pornography escalation coming full circle back to the mundane.

This has by far been the worst month leading up to my birthday ever. It hasn’t been all bad I admit, but the highlights have just been muted, like my promotion. I’ve only had it dangled in front of me for like 6 months, so getting it wasn’t full of elation, it was just a well yeah, I’ve deserved that for way longer than this.

Just people dying, relationships fracturing, frustration escalating, and fear rising.

The only thing I can think of to make things better is to make detailed plans to make things better, which in some cases I have.

As a birthday/promotion/make me feel better present to myself I think I’m going to buy some new hockey pants, Warrior brand of course. With gift money from my parents, remaining fun tax money left over after buying my new shin guards, and money from selling my old shin guards, they’ll only cost $29 of real money. I think I deserve that. I’m such a whore for Warrior gear. I think that’s about all the Warrior stuff I could buy other than shoulder pads, but they would be so overkill for a no check league it would be ridiculous. (Some dudes don’t even wear them, and I cut off the hard plastic pads on mine anyway.)

Looks like I’m going to make it. One more post tomorrow on my birthday and I’ll have done it. It wasn’t as hard as I thought, maybe I’ll be able to keep it up, maybe not once a day, but I’ve been able to see the anecdotes in daily life now again.

Second question: Am I less of a man for really, really liking show tunes?



Substitute Peoria for skid-row and downtown, too many syllables I know.

Waves of Emotion

So that tingling feeling of something going to happen, happened, as it were.

My boss instant messages me and tells me he set up a one on one with me the next day early in the morning and wants to make sure I can make it.

My brain immediately recoils in horror thinking that I’ve been caught using the interweb too much, or that fact that I’m at work for exactly 8 hours a day now, not a minute more.

I try to feel out the situation so I don’t spend the evening throwing up in anticipation.

I message back, sure no problem. Do I need to have some yearly goals put together to discuss or something like that?

He messages back, Well, I wanted to tell you in person… Oh shit … that your promotion went through.

Cooling calm and joy fill my heart. All my finishing reports on time has paid off. I tell him that’s awesome and thank him for working it on his end.

So I get 5%, and now I’m a Senior Gonzo Engineer. Maybe the Gonzo won’t be listed, but we all know the truth. I guess the grays in my beard are deserved now. It will look nice on a resume too, puts me in a different category and bargaining position.

This morning the kids don’t wake up at some point from 5-7. Seriously, the day I need to get in by 7:30 and they don’t make a sound. On top of that we find out my wife’s friend’s mom died this morning. I’m full of panic, self worth, and sadness. I need to get to this meeting so I get out the door buy 7:08. Luckily Peoria did a halfway decent job clearing the streets after 3 inches of snow.

I tear up a bit as I climb the hill to work. It’s a combination of relief of getting this promotion they’ve dangled in front of me for so long, and the loss my wife’s friend has to deal with. I remember her wedding and talking to her mom, this kind, lovely, gracious woman, nevermore. I try to pull my shit together and navigate the country road without killing myself.

I make it to work 5 minutes late, no big deal, everyone is 5 minutes late to every meeting they go to.

I sit down after the meeting, which is really nothing groundbreaking after finding out the high point the day before, and I am able to breath and let my head stop swimming.

12, 8, 73

Last Friday 50 contract workers got let go at the sandbox. Laborers, engineers, technicians, no field was spared.

It was a nice cap to President Obama visiting Opposite of Dog, and the Peoria area on Thursday. I’m working on my doctored photo of myself and the President. I like to fictitiously introduce all Presidents that stop by Opposite of Dog.

He was standing in front of the machine that I designed the cooling package, air intake, and exhaust system on. So if you look at the exhaust stack and pre-screener you can see what a kick ass engineer I am. The machine to his far left I’m doing the hydraulics development on. It was like I was right there with him in a far off, vicarious, unreal way.



I think if I get laid off I’ll become an appliance repairman. I fixed our like 25 year old dryer. One of the support rollers bushings had seized on the shaft it rotated on. That ripped the bushing off of the plastic hub and made the drum kind of bounce and make a horrible noise. It’s so quiet now you can’t even really tell when it’s done running.

It’s a Special Day in Peoria

Gas has broken the $4.00 per gallon barrier!!! At the bottom of the hill of the sandbox it’s $4.08 per gallon. How does that play in Peoria? I don’t know… That’s kind of a stupid saying anyway. My vehicles get about 21 and 29 mpg in the city. Each month I spend roughly $150 on gasoline when it was around $3.75. I use a Chase Marathon oil card and get 5% back in gas cards. So I’m really only paying $3.88 a gallon. The best thing I ever did though was sell my 14 mpg Silverado a few years ago.

This is really going to start screwing shit up in the economy. All those hard working blue-collar dudes with full size trucks are going to have to start shelling out $100 each time they fill up. These are the same dudes that don’t like living in the city and have to travel 20 miles one way to get groceries and go to work. Stupid. I have relatively fuel-efficient vehicles, and I live right in the middle of Peoria. I drive 14 miles round trip to work.

So the first internal combustion engine was designed in 1806, and from 1806 to around 1998 the cost of gas went up to .96 per gallon (in Wisconsin Rapids, the lowest I’ve ever paid.) in 192 years. In the next ten years it’s gone up $3.12. I don’t really have a point, it’s just interesting, and I’m sure if you adjust for inflation it’s been really expensive at other times.

Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

My dad never went to college.
- So it was real important that I go.
- That sounds familiar.

So I graduate.
Call him up long-distance
and say, "Dad, now what?"

- He says, "Get a job."
I Make my yearly call again.

"Dad, now what?"

He says, "I dunno. Get married."

I had to drop some Fight Club on you since I haven’t in a while. So I’m at this point in my life that I’ve achieved all these milestone sort of things. I’ve graduated college. I’m married. I have a house with two cars in the garage. I’ve got a son. I’ve got a stable, well paying job. These are big things to have done in life.

It’s not like I’ve fucking landed on the moon or anything, but I’ve accomplished a lot of major life goals.

I was trying to think of what my goals are now.

I don’t really have any killer ambition at work to climb super high on the corporate ladder. I just want to make enough money to live comfortably, and pay off all my debt in a year.

I want more kids, because Carter is the coolest little thing ever.

I want to play hockey every week. It’s a pretty short-term, simple goal, but I derive immense enjoyment from it.

I don’t want to die in Peoria. There’s my big long-term goal.

I designed the Sears Tower; I make two grand an hour

I had a productive Monday morning. I got all the testing done I needed to. I thought it would take most of the week, but everything went well and we got it done. On Friday I learned how to put a 47,000-pound bulldozer up on stands. They don’t exactly make jacks of that size. Basically you put wood blocks under the tracks and back up on them. Then you slide stands under the back, lift the front end up with the blade, and then put stands under the front. The tracks are completely off the ground, and you can do steering tests. I have an awesome job. Of all the boring shit I could be doing as a mechanical engineer, I get to put bulldozers up on stands and brake stall the tracks.

Tonight I’m turning in my hockey roster for winter league. I’m happy with the team I put together. It should be a fun season. I don’t expect to win every game, but it’ll be fun.

I played Rat last night with a bunch of really good players. It was a lot of fun. I was blasted when I got home. There were like 30 guys there so I didn’t get all that many shifts over the hour and a half, but I was working hard skating up to their level.

We’re going to make a trip to Madison on Saturday. There isn’t a home football game so we’ll be able to enjoy the downtown campus area on a nice Fall day. We need to make trips back to Madison every so often so we don’t start to think that Peoria is actually a good town to live in. I’m looking forward to eating some good Thai food. It should be a fun day trip.

Peoria is what it is

It looks like Peoria is going to open up a toxic waste dump on the city limits

Well, as the old saying goes... you can create a place to store the toxic waste, but you just can't take the toxic waste out of a shithole town.... or something like that.

It's fitting really, and I think it's hilarious all the locals are pissed off about it. It blows my mind that some people actually think Peoria is a good place to live their entire lives in.

Snotty McSnoterton

The section continues its spiral into oblivion with the addition of Snotty McSnoterton. Being within earshot, all I hear every ten minutes or so is a nasally snort and a hacking throat clearing. I don’t know if this is a medical condition or what, but it should really be taken care of, or just blow the damn thing… I don’t know? It’s really fucking irritating though.

Ah what else… I’ve been taking 5mg of Lexapro, and my digestive track is still a bit iffy. Although it always has been so I don’t know if it’s the Lexapro or if it’s just me. I do feel mentally better though from taking it, not as edgy.

Did I ever mention that Peoria smells? Seriously, it smells like baby vomit mixed with yeast. It doesn’t smell like that at my house, but it does downtown and in East Peoria. The putrid smell comes from an ethanol plant that processes corn and refines it into ethanol. Whatever process they are using makes this awful smell. Luckily the air handling units in my building at work filter it out otherwise I wouldn’t be able to work here.

I was watching HBO a few days ago and came upon this comedy-singing duo by the name of Flight of the Conchords. Go to the link and listen to the songs. They are hilarious.


Money makes the smell better.

This town is Fucked

No theatres in Peoria are going to be playing "Jarhead" this Friday.


What the fuck is wrong with these people?

A look into the lives and struggles of Marines that may have some negative war statements in it a la "Full Metal Jacket" can't be shown, but a movie about a sadistic serial killer who tortures his victims can have 2 theatres dedicated to it.

Peoria is a fucking cultural wasteland; anyone who thinks different needs to get out more.

Let's get down to brass tacks. How much for the ape?

So it’s really starting to hit home now that I’m going to be a father. We’ve started taking birthing classes, and the worm baby can now be easily felt from the outside, kicking and punching.

I actually felt like crying today as I drove into work. I imagined talking to my child and trying to tell him/her that they were born in Peoria. Then explaining how my life was while I was living here, what I did, who I knew, etc. I felt like crying because this town is terrible, and I feel bad my daughter/son has to be born here and consider themselves a native Peorian(?), and Illinoisan(?).

The second reason is that I know so little about my father’s life prior to me or my sisters. I know from hearsay that he was engaged before he met my mom, thus I almost never existed. (That’s kind of crazy shit to wrap your mind around). Imagine all those little choices you make in life that completely determine how your life will turn out in the end. But anyway, I have no idea what my dad was like when he was just starting out as an adult. That’s kind of why I like this blog. My kid can look at this and see how I was, for better or worse. What I though, how I felt, what decisions I had to make. (As long as Blogger doesn’t go bankrupt or somehow change its services, which is probably inevitable)

I’ve got this home issue too. I think one of my old natural gas lines may have a tiny, tiny tiny, tiny, tiny leak in it at a joint. If you get your nose right up close to it, you can smell the faintest tiniest bit of rotten eggs, but not all the time. I smelled it once before like two months ago, and my house hasn’t blown up since, and I never smell it strongly when I just walk into the basement, I have to get up close to the floor joist where it runs and smell right next to it. This leads me to believe it’s not accumulating at all. I put an open flame up near it and it didn’t really do anything, so I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t really want to call the gas company cause I don’t know if they charge just to come out and see if it ends up being nothing. I also don’t want to pay a licensed pipe fitter (plumber) $100/hr to come in and take out this totally unnecessary line. (It would be used for a gas stove if I had one, but it’s capped at the end right now). I don’t know, I guess I’ll keep a nose on it.

Hey why haven't you donated to my life yet?

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your ears

My wife and I were talking last night about how we don’t really have any close friends here. We both have friends in Peoria, but none that we would classify as best friends, or close friends like we’ve had in the past. The kinds of people you can just go over and watch TV with. You don’t have to have a set plan of things to do. You just enjoy each other’s company and insight into the normal things in life.

For my wife, it’s difficult to make friends because she works with people who have lived in the area their whole lives and already have very close circles of friends. My only excuse is that I’m weird and have distinguishing taste when it comes to the people I hang out with. Most engineers aren’t any fun to hang out with (usually way to conservative for me)… so I don’t.

My best friend ever in the history of me was Jay. He and I were good friends all through school, starting in second grade. We were thick as thieves, especially when we were stealing things. He was an only child, and I was the only boy in my family, so we had almost a brotherly relationship. We had a lot of fun times, but when we went to different schools, we lost touch. We still talk once in a while, but it’s infrequent.

When I went to college, I had two good friends, JJ and Ehron. JJ was a fellow student (Liberal Arts though, not a boring engineer), and I met Ehron when I was doing janitor work at Meriter Hospital. Now that I’m in Peoria, I’ve begun to drift apart from them as well. It’s a fucking Greek tragedy.

I’ve always said that tragedy shows you exactly the kind of person you are, it also shows you how strong/weak your friendship is, whether it be a car accident, psychotic roommate, or an attempted suicide, that shit either makes you better or it breaks you.
Anyway, this place feels more and more like a prison every day, with walls that keep on getting higher. I seriously need to get back into therapy. HA! That won’t make me any friends. Eh (shrugs) I play someone normal on TV.

The Weekend

Somehow this weekend was one of the better weekends that I’ve had in some time. On the surface it doesn’t seem like it should have been, but when you look at it in summary it’s quite good.

Drinking with friends, Going to a strip club, Watching TV, Getting 9 hours of sleep, Helping a friend move (very easy move), Relaxing in the air conditioning, Eating Barbeque Brisket, Taking a nap, Watching American Psycho, Playing Grand Theft Auto, Sleeping for 9 hours, Painting the shutters, Hanging the shutters, Buying a new fridge, Playing Hockey, Scoring two goals, Almost getting into a hockey fight, Binging on food and drink, Going to sleep, Waking up to have good sex, Back to sleep.

All in all it was a good weekend. I haven’t felt content falling asleep before the workweek in a long time, like somehow I missed out on something over the weekend. Like I didn’t do something or finish something I should have. Not this weekend, I got a good mix of everything. Weekends like this only come along every so often. It wasn’t rushed, but there was plenty of action and things to do.

Now back to work. I’ve got the new Harry Potter book on CD though, so at least I can listen to it while I work. My wife bought it for me because she knows I have a hard time getting motivated to read. I like to read, but this just makes it easier. It’s like listening to a radio play from the early years of radio. The guy who reads it does voices and really acts out the story.
So there it is. Hopefully the week will treat me ok.

I've always thought Blogs are kind of dumb

, but I decided to start one anyway. If nothing else, it will give me something to do at work, other than work. I'm an engineer at that place that's opposite of Dog. We make big machines and I live 1/3 of my days in an open air cube. It's not so bad, I get paid, I get to use the web.

I often wonder what people did at work before they could go online and dick around. I think I'd go insane. Although I'm slowly going insane working here. I was semi-cool about a year two years ago... back in college. I had kind of the punk thing going, which gave me several tattoos. (Full back piece, right sleeve, other small extras).

Now I'm turning into a square. I figure the insanity I'm experiencing is a result of the transformation. Getting the mail is actually a highlight of my day. That's so fucking sad. I'm trying pretty hard though not to be like the rest of the zombie engineers. I try to dress fashionably, wear cool belt buckles, and also wear ties. You'd think that would make me more of a square, but since everyone here hates ties, I wear them to piss them off.

My rebellion has gone from getting naked women on my lower forearm to wearing flamboyantly colored ties. Jesus Christ

I live in Peoria, IL. I used to live in Madison, WI. Politically it's like moving from Sweden to Saudi Arabia. One of the most progressive places in the USA to one of the most conservative. We (my wife and I) mind as well be in the deep south even though we're only 1/3 of the way down IL. Oh yeah, Fuck the Illini and there stupid ass basketball team. God I hate basketball.

That will do for now. I feel less crazy. Maybe I'll make it to 25 before loosing it all. 353 days till that though.