In the midnight hour...

She cried, (balti)more, more more!

Headin' to Baltimore with Reese & Rollo this weekend to see The Dan Band, one of Rollo's most favorite bands. Speaking of The Dan Band, I want this to be very clear: Rollo has never ONCE ripped off a single Dan Band act. I'll not hear the lies. For as long as I've known Rollo, he's been acting, dressing and (more importantly) SINGING like a girl. If anything, its is DAN HIMSELF that copied Rollo. Maybe I'll make a facebook group in an attempt to liberate Rollo from the grasp of heathenism.

Hah. Naw, Rollo's alright. In fact, he and a mere pack animal (a ram) built the very venue in which The Dan Band will be performing. Sadly, a day before construction was complete, the ram died. In memory of his once alive animal friend, Rollo named the place Ram's Head Live - particularly because he liked his ram and he liked him alive.

While in Baltimore, we plan on visiting the sights! Like The Louvre, Space-camp and the official birthplace of the neon light!
...
Either that, or we'll check out a starbucks.

Its all gravy

Yesterday at about lunchtime I visited the Giant Eagle Market District in Bethel Park. I hadn't decided if I was hungry or not, so I took a real solid look around the entire place. I, of course, was on my typical hunt for fat-free foods. I found some offerings of soup from Campbell's that I hadn't known about, in particular the New England Clam Chowder with one gram of fat in it tickled my fancy. That's pretty huge for me as I'm a lover of all things chowder. Despite the chowder, I have to think the best thing I found was the fat-free gravy.

This changes everything.

Thanksgiving would normally come and go and leave me very disappointed. Turkey is fine, yeah, but what's turkey without the gravy? What's fat-free mashed potatoes without that delicious slop? Ted (the gravy king) would have dumped me over the side of a boat and into a harbor a long time ago had he known I wasn't doing my civic duty by sampling the various Thanksgiving gravies. The best I could do would be to have some ketchup with my turkey (an OK thing, but that's about it). Now that the Heinz company has come through for me, I've now got another chance at truly enjoying Thanksgiving!

Bring on the turkey. Bring on the potatoes. Bring on the football. But most importantly:

Bring on the gravy.

Engaged

I'm officially engaged. Reese & I made it official yesterday. I've got a blog so I'll chronicle it!

(To set the scene, She has NO idea I'm going to propose, let alone that I had a ring.)
Reese and I usually wake up early on Sundays and go to the park. I do some running, she does some walking and we eventually end up throwing some frisbee. This particular Sunday, we went to Rotary park in California where we first met. Its not unusual for us to go here, we spend at least a few hours there each week to get some exercise. I hid the ring in a zipper pocket of my running pants before I walked out the door of my house. When we get there, I talk with my buddy's mom who I had seen passing and Reese began her walk. A few laps into her walk she asks "Do you mind if we just skip frisbee today? It's cold." to which I reply "Nope, we're throwing some frisbee at least for a few minutes." I proceed normally. The ring is safely tucked inside my pants pocket and I run my mile. After my mile is complete, Reese and I walk toward the middle of the field. I put my hands in my pockets to make it look like I'm trying to "warm them up". I grabbed the ring and placed it in my left hand, still acting like I'm warming them up. She's still walking towards me, but I notice she's got her mitten to her mouth. "What's wrong?" I ask. She replied that she had thrown the frisbee up in the air, went to catch it, missed it and it fell and hit her square in the lip.

Precisely the opening I was looking for.

My original idea was to begin throwing the frisbee but "twist my ankle" and get down on one knee, then pop the question. It turns out I didn't need to do any such thing. She provided me the perfect opportunity to propose, herself. The frisbee had hit her upper lip, and she wanted me to to make sure there wasn't anything wrong (which there obviously wasn't) so I knelt down on one knee and told her to look up. I got the ring out, and when she looked down she was met with a "LaResa Mae Welms, will you marry me?"

I was a bit taken back by the way she replied initially, saying "Are you serious?" forcing me to push the whole ring thing harder. THEN! Then she leaves me hanging! For what felt like an eternity, she just kind of gawked and didn't say much. I could have sworn I was on my knee for an hour. Many thoughts ran through my mind. "Did I do this right?", "Is this the wrong setting?", "Why the hell isn't she saying YES?"

When I finally got the answer I was looking for (she said "yes") she flipped her wig. What started as some soft crying, exploded into what I like to call "The Hines Ward End Zone Dance." She does this bit of a jump-and-twirl dance each time Hines scores a touchdown (she's got him on her fantasy football team). So, I was relieved after she broke into dance. We exchanged some more mushy moments, while some people drove by beeping and yelling out the windows of their cars.

The best part of the whole engagement came while we were walking back to the car. She said, "This is exactly how I wanted you to propose: where we met." You couldn't spell RELIEF better if you handed me a burrito and some Pepto Bismol. All I could think at that moment was "home run".

She spent the rest of the day calling everyone on earth and letting them know that she was indeed engaged. It was a fantastic day filled with many a happy tear and many a good time. I'm really glad that I was able to do something really and truly right for that girl. Love you, Reese.

Terrible music

Wanna hear a truly terrible song? Look no further than "Is there a Ghost?" by Band of Horses. Go here to listen to it.

Most music today friggin' sucks. Seriously, when did record labels come out and say "Okay, I want BAND X to repeat the same three lines over and over again but just change the music a little while you do it. That song by Band of Horses is an example of a truly bad song. I'm being very truthful when I say the song has three lines. THREE LINES! And they're getting national exposure. PATHETIC.

What the hell happened to music, nowadays? Remember "Take a Picture" by Filter? How about, "Everything is All Right" by Motion City Soundtrack. Those were some songs that maybe weren't great, but at very least they had lyrics that told a story.

This makes me wonder if I'm not the victim of a Band of Horses joke. I'm wondering if they made this song as one of those "filler" songs that they had never intended to go national, but if it did, they can laugh at the ridiculousness of it . If that were the case, I'd respect them for their funny-bone, but I seriously doubt an indie band like Band of Horses would do that. Its a damn shame that some suit was shortsighted enough to allow crap like that to ruin the good name plastic has given CD's.

Now, if you'd like to hear a good song, try "Thrash Unreal" by Against Me!

Great DVD player

God, I need a new DVD player. A few years ago, my pops won a contest where he worked and ended up with this prize. It worked swell up until last year at some point. Each time Rollo, Reese and I sit down for an evening of movie watching, we can manage to get through about 3/4 of the movie before it starts skipping - sometimes back to the DVD menu itself! I don't know if it just gets too hot (it doesn't feel hot) or if its just another rickety piece of junk that somehow hammered out a few years worht of functionality. Whatever the case, I have another DVD player in my room that I always forget about. If I use brain sometimes maybe I get watch DVD movie yes? Yeesh, I'm a moron.

We ended up watching Stranger than Fiction and while it didn't really fit into what I thought I was going to see, I still enjoyed it. That is, I expected another Will Ferrell "slap-my-knee" comedy. At the end of the movie, I was more disappointed I didn't get many one-liners or clever quotes from it. Rollo had asked me what I had thought about it, and I replied "It's not my favorite, but certainly don't hate it." After sleeping on it, though, I realized that I did rather enjoy the movie. It could easily fit into my arsenal of movies. Good movie! I'll be sure to add it to my Amazon.com wish list.

Fer!

Each month I'm going to update my banner at the top of my blog. Good fer me! So for those of you who enjoy those kind of "easter eggs", good fer you too!

Now, my real purpose for blogging. I typically write/post my blog via email. In my email, I have a very good spell check. It corrects me during those rare instances where I am wrong. Somehow, in my opening sentence (directly above) it failed to correct me when I typed the word "fer" intead of "for". I consulted the Merriam-Webster dictionary for the complete definition. Here's where that got me:

Main Entry:

-fer

Function:

noun combining form

Etymology:

French & Latin; French -fère, from Latin -fer bearing, one that bears, from ferre to carry — more at bear

: one that bears <aquifer>

Not so helpful!