january recap

On the last day of each month I'm going to recap what went on in the past 30-some (a 30-sum? don't mind if I do!) days. Let's see what I did this month:

I started the month off by blasting off to Buffalo on New Year's eve with Reese, Rollo and moms. On New Year's day, we attended the most amazing hockey game I've ever seen - the NHL Winter Classic. We met our good friend Petey there and pregame'd in the blistering cold. We even saw the mounties mount-up for a man-hunt!

The next week saw me spend five days in Philadelphia for some SAP training. The trip there was mind-numbing but once I was settled in my suite, it really wasn't that bad. The internet connection left a lot to be desired and they didn't have Nickelodeon, but the training center was nice and served a free lunch. All you can eat, baby.

I arrived home that Saturday, in time to finally buy books for my two graduate courses (which is a story in itself). How quickly Mondays and Thursdays have become my bane! These two days are stretched so thin that I'm arriving home no earlier than 9:00, which says a lot about what I can eat for dinner (hint: not much). Who eats dinner after 7:00 anyway? Needless to say, I'm appreciative that I can actually attend class again but its coming at an exhausting expense. Heh, I'll adapt.

For what time remained in January it seemed like anything could happen. Reese and I spoke with a mortgage broker, a realtor, a lender and a rental specialist to discuss our housing options (which we're still working on). On Sundays, we'd watch football and hit a case of Sam Adams "Winter Beers" HARD. There were a few excellent bar nights in there too, hailing from both Uniontown and California. McBride and I started a lifting program, the Cal U Ultimate Frisbee team welcomed me back and I've even orchestrated the first meeting of my groomsmen. All things considered, I've had a damn productive month!

Tomorrow, I'll unveil the new February headliner image! It's rrrrrrrrrrrandy!

hambone'd

McBride and I finally made our triumphant return to weightlifting yesterday. Today my body is killing me. Anything that isn't in my lower hemisphere is pretty sore right now. I haven't seriously lifted weights since about 2002, and it sure showed. I couldn't complete my last set on the bench press with 135lbs on the bar. I remember the days when I used to easily work out with 225lbs. Now, that's some seriously weak shit - I used to use 135 to warm up. Although I'm a bit disappointed, my plan here isn't to become the avid weight lifter I once was. No, my plan is to become buff enough so that when I go back to the tux shoppe they say "whoa! if we keep you in this tux, there's a good chance you'll 'Hulk out' of it at some point during your wedding ceremony". Yeah, I can picture that going well. "HULK DO!"

Tonight we'll be recording the 40th episode of Crock & Murph in the Morning, which should silence the few of you who've been clamoring for a new broadcast. I encourage anyone reading this to be a part of it (you know how to get ahold of me). On Saturday, I'm hosting the first "meeting of the groomsmen" where we'll discuss the developing wedding issues and most certainly end up plenty drunk. Speaking of which, I should probably go get a case for them to enjoy...

Rollo sent me this last week and it's been killing me ever since:

lunch won the battle

Man, I'm hungry. So what do I do when I'm hungry? I think about food that I'll never eat. In fact, I was viewing some rather interesting bento lunches (you won't regret clicking that link) when I realized I'm not going to get to feed until after 9:00 tonight. Thursdays are extra long days for me since I work until 4:30 and attend class until almost 9:00. So right now, I'm in a bad spot to be hungry. Eating lunch makes me sleepy, so I ditch that for browsing. I don't snack here because it distracts me. I bowl through the day using only the power of breakfast. I just really wish I'd remember to eat a bigger meal of the morning. (sounds awfully professional -- meal of the morning)

And what the hell is this crap? I can't even read that garbage. More importantly, who eats this stuff?!? Funny picture, though!

hittin' the weights

The more I think about it, I really need to start lifting weights. Aside from the infrequent trip to the bar I'm always looking for new ways to improve my health. I run enough, but the intensity of my running tends to plateau each year at about mid-winter. When it comes right down to it, how can't it? Its cold out and I have to replace an entire park with a treadmill. Bleh. I guess hitting the weights was always an option but I haven't had any interest in lifting lately. Not that I found it boring, I just feel out of place. Something about sweatin' it out with dudes who literally eat the dumbbells after their last set didn't seem appealing to me. (Not that I find it particularly appealing now) That being said, I've determined the following: most importantly, I'm not the Buccos - I can't just pack up shoppe and go to Bradenton, FL for spring training. Secondly, there is no winter "running league". So, with that in mind, I talked with McBride today and we agreed that we should go to the gym and lift at least three times a week. Sounds good to me!

the candidate calculator

I'm no political zealot but I try to keep up on which democratic presidential candidate best aligns with my beliefs. This isn't always easy. I've kept tabs on the primaries and tried to focus on "how I feel" versus "how each candidate feels" in the debates. Let me tell you, without a paper and pen - I've had no real shot at doing this what with all the double-talk and clever (and sometimes not-so-clever) dodging.

With that in mind, I know way too many people who either aren't interested in the upcoming presidential election or aren't concerned about the issues that surround the candidates. Who actually wants to watch a debate, anyway? I do it only because I truly have to. It is my firm belief that if you work and receive a real paycheck while working in the US, then you've got a decision to make come election day. At the very least, this whole election process affects how much you get paid and that's enough to stir me to take an interest in the election.

I suggest that if you don't have time for the election or are completely uninterested, that you visit the website below. It's got a calculator-style program that helps you find the presidential candidate that best reflects your ideas, values and beliefs. It only takes four or five minutes if you need an explanation on several issues (and I did). I'm not saying it's the end-all, beat-all tool that will absolutely determine who you should vote for. All I'm saying is that if you plan to vote and don't have time to follow the election, this link can't hurt.


http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html

the weekender

This weekend was really good to me. First, Reese & I met with a realtor on Friday about some rental properties, which I believe was a waste of time. We shrugged that off and went to J Coles to throw back some cold ones with some good friends --- the $5 miller light buckets treated us damn well. It was nice to finally sit down and drink a few beers with Chuck - one of my oldest and best friends. Add McBride and Rollo to the equation and we've got almost half of the groomsmen in the building. This was much needed as I had to find a way to blow off some steam after the particularly crappy day of work I had earlier.

Saturday saw me take four hours out of the day to relax and just play video games. A stress-free afternoon was just what the doctor ordered as I was desperate to get some much-needed quiet time. Afterwards, Reese and I then went to Pittsburgh to do some shopping and capped the night off with a dinner at a place that's becoming a Rollo-Reese-and-Crock favorite - Hoss's. Reese even won me a hat from one of those "Sugarloaf" machines - you know the ones, filled with stuffed animals and whatnot. The hat is hilarious! It's a picture of a crocodile (for Crock) drinking a cold one and reads "Tailgator". Fits well!

When Sunday finally rolled around, we were already pretty hype for the AFC/NFC championships. Of course, both teams we were pulling for lost but I've got no objections to a Giants vs. Patriots Super Bowl. Early Sunday, Reese and I got about halfway through our "surprise project". This is something that I'll release soon, but I'd like to make it very clear from the start that this was all LaResa's idea.(Not to mention it being one of the coolest suggestions she's ever made! Seriously.) I remember discussing this very idea with Rollo a long, long time ago - long before I had met Reese - and its just really friggin' cool that her and I (and Rollo, I guess) are on the same wavelength. We'll hopefully have it finished within the next few days. Look forward to it!

buried treasure!

Ever notice how some of the coolest things are hidden in some of the last places you'd think to look? This mostly happens with my Weezer CD's. I'll burn a disc or two, put them somewhere safe so they won't get scratched (like the cabinet in my bathroom) and eventually lose track of them. Whenever I want to listen to these discs, I'll go on a warpath to find them. I'll tear through every drawer, jewel case, or CD jacket I own until I give up and just burn the CD all over again. Then, one special day I'll be searching for aftershave or a decent towel and I'll stumble upon these CD's. A thought will briefly run through my mind; "Next time I burn a CD, I'll make damn sure I remember where I put 'em". The cycle then repeats itself.

Most recently, this has happened to my car keys. I remember coming home from class Monday night with a handful of things; my phone, gloves, a hat, a scarf, and my Garmin. My keys were also somewhere in that cluttered mess as well, and I remember throwing all of this stuff onto the kitchen table. I had THOUGHT I left my keys on the table as I normally do, though I am known to pile everything together in my room near my phone charger. Well, Monday gives way to Tuesday and my keys are GONE. I chalk it up to me being a jerkoff and that night, I kick up a search party consisting of my mom, Reese and I to track them down. I'm sitting here on a Thursday afternoon still missing my keys. I seriously must have either dumped them in the trash inadvertently, or stashed them away good. The biggest loss on this deal is that I've got two cases of Sam Adams "Lagers of Winter" outside just waiting to be drank... and my bottle opener is my keychain!

I told you these two stories to tell you this one. For a few weeks now, I have been secretly admiring Rollo's blog and Joe's myspace page because they've got facebook badges on them. For the longest time I had wished facebook would come up with something like this, to help others network. The trouble is, they created it and I must have missed the boat. After weeks of frustratingly searching facebook, its' help section and various forums around the web I just gave up. It wasn't until today that I stumbled upon how to create this "badge". I was looking at my profile at about the time one of my groomsman wrote on my wall. It was then I noticed that somehow my profile got all goofed up! Somehow, my "Wall" section had jumped up a few bars moving my "LOL Cats" to the very bottom of the page. I fixed it, but there at the bottom of the page lied my answer! Right where I never, ever look was a link titled "Create a Profile Badge". And the rest, as you can see to the right of this paragraph, is history. I can't believe the "wild goose chase" of a treasure hunt this turned out to be. Good thing I've got a "Pirate Crock" persona. Yarrr!

I'll bring the hot sauce

Since everybody I know who blogs tends to be writing about "the past" or "memories", I thought I'd follow the trend and write about some things I like to remember.

Quite a few years ago my friend Tim and his family (the Hixenbaugh tribe) invited me to go camping with them in Erie for the fourth of July. This had to be during the summer of 2000 or so, and I was still a spry, young Crock. I remember thinking that the trip was grueling, over 200 miles to Erie? BAH! We spent the better part of a week in a pop-up camper, which was awesome because I then had a bad snoring problem. I think my fondest memory about the whole trip was when I gave total disregard to the campground's policy on clothing. In those days, I was sporting some sweet tighty-whities as my undergarb of choice. The story begins when I find my pair of magic underwear with a big hole in the right cheek one morning. I purposely set these aside. As afternoon wanes into evening, I take advantage of the beautiful sunset. I haul ass to the showers and lather, rinse and repeat. I dry myself. Then, I do something not short of a miracle: I don my hole-laden underwear and walk the hell outa there with a MANLY strut. The camper was parked a good 150-200 yards away so as I walked back, I made sure to greet onlookers with a "hey, howyadoin?" or "enjoyin' the day?". As I arrived back to the camper to dress, I don't think I heard Tim's mom laugh so hard before in my life. I dressed in the camper just to ensure everybody had something to scratch their heads about.

Another moment I'll never forget as long as I walk this earth happened on this same camping trip. As we approached our midweek dinner, we were tired of cooking out so we decided to hit the road and find some yums. We ended up at a chinese restaurant that served some KILLER crab legs. This was my first experience at a chinese restaurant. I credit this experience alone as having created my love/hate relationship with the oriental foodstuff. In fact, this food was so important to me at one point in high school that we would frequent the China Wok Buffet in Uniontown so often, that the waitresses would have our table and drinks set up for us (Jake, Chuck, Hix) as they'd see us walk in the doors. Those were some fun times. Unfortunately, after many conflict-riddled years of fighting incredible urges for chinese food, I've finally sworn the stuff off. I haven't eaten it in three or four months now and I don't plan on returning to it any time soon.

So there you have it. Two "spicy" memories. My fine ass + chinese food = the hot sauce. And I've brought both.

Let's start a war!

Today's a long day. After work, it's back to school I go, as I wage scholarly war on the MBA program at Cal. I've dubbed my newest collegiate journey "Let's find Crock a MBA". Consol is paying 90% of the tab, so I'd be a fool not to enroll. The absolute best part of this is that since Cal is part of the State System of Higher Education, the aforementioned tab comes on the cheap. A cool $300 should cover this semester in FULL.

Now, a word about my schedule:
During this semester, I will be visited by two night classes per week and hopefully shortly thereafter, I'll be able to shout at a passerby from my bedroom window; clamoring about "what day it is" and "oh HO! I haven't missed it after all!"


And maybe a little about how to administer some business... which you'd already know I can do, if you've ever tried to fight me.

King of Prussia Mall

The mall is massive. You can easily get lost. I frequently consulted mall directories and ended up finding a store where I picked up a very special gift for Reese. Now if I can only find a place that sells Philadelphia-style shot glasses...

I entered the mall via a Sears. I figure, since their parking lots are almost always empty, it should be pretty easy to get outa there. It turns out I was right, but I'll not get ahead of myself. The mall consists of two separate wings, a crosswalk and a main portion - all of which are giant. It took me about an hour and a half to course the place and just get a feel for it. As I paced along the hallways, I noticed it was decorated unlike any other mall I've seen. The mall itself claims stores like Versace, Coach, Hugo Boss and Armani and I suppose the ambiance reflects the uppish-ness of these stores. Couple that with classic music playing overhead, and you're not in southwestern PA anymore.

I really think its important to drag Reese, Jaker and Rollo out here and make them tour it, so I've completed an entire weekend trip to Philly in my mind. (Complete with mind-itinerary)

Other than that, here's some other notable features of Philadelphians:

1. Many food vendors in the KoP mall often have lots of fresh fruit available. Considering my lifestyle, I sincerely appreciate this.
2. They don't push the cheese-steak as hard as you'd like them to. Cmon, Philly. Grow a set.
3. Many people in the KoP mall value English as a second language. Listening to their arguments in gibberish was awesome!
4. Roads here actually lead where you'd think they'd go. Pittsburgh could learn a lot from the city of 'brotherly love'.
5. Any sporting goods store will welcome you with Donovan McNabb jerseys that are up to 60% off. There are NO exceptions.

As a final note, I really wish housekeeping would just leave my towels where I throw em. Just because they're on the floor doesn't mean that I'm through with them. I just don't wish to disgrace my toothbrush by making it keep company with soiled linens.

Hump day in Philly

So its my first official blog from Philly. Here's how things have gone down so far.

I burst onto the scene in the evening hours of last Sunday. It was some trip out here.  The majority of the trip was spent on a 232 mile stretch of interstate that was unforgiving (road wasn't kept well) and sleep inducing. It was easily one of the longest and most boring straightaways I've ever driven. Whenever I arrived, my hotel suite welcomed me. Its a nice 1-bedroom, 1-bath gig, complete with full kitchen and living room. In fact, its pretty nice. Pics should be up on my flickr / facebook by tonight. Pick your poison, they'll both house the same pics.

Monday was grueling. I was exhausted from the trip and had to go to SAP training (what I came here for) and really try to focus. The day crawled and I tried to soak everything in, but I was really just getting my routine started. When I was done with training for the day and returned to my suite (Staybridge Suites - recommended!) I had to learn how to quickly budget my time. With no future wife to prepare me a meal, I had to go running as soon as I returned so I can get showered, cook and enjoy some serious downtime. That takes me to about 8:00. I then like to enjoy a few hours of World of Warcraft before Family Guy at 11:00. Time seems to come at a premium. Its seriously seems like a lot of time, but brother, it sure isn't.

Tuesday saw me repeat the same process, but this time I was much more streamlined with it. I ended up with an extra half hour to do whatever, but it still hardly felt like I had any time at all. Couple that with trying to simultaneously soak in SAP information, and I'm two-days-garbled!

I'm planning on visiting the King of Prussia mall tonight. Its the second largest mall in the country, so I'm sure they have something there.

Some important things I've noticed about Philadelphians:

1. They have no concept as to what a "Giant Eagle" is. In fact, one girl asked me why I'd want to go see a big bird. Such a sweet girl...
2. Their WalMart is barn shaped and built next to a silo. It made Uniontown's WalMart look like the Taj Majal of superstores.
3. Radio stations here kick ass. 104.5 is an incredible station. Its like my whole iTunes library is available on my car radio. Only 30-60 second commercials, too. Nice.
4. 5:00 traffic on any 4 lane highway crawls. 45 mins per 2-3 miles. Sickening waits.
5. SAP training center urinals are water-free. Not exactly sure what to make of this yet. I can appreciate how green this is, but I have NO idea how it works! (Crappers are standard crappers.)
   
6. The SAP training center also has ZERO water fountains. When I asked the woman at the front desk about a fountain, she informed me that the only water in the building is in water bottles in the cafeterias. (They recycle EVERYTHING.)
   

On a side note, the SAP training campus prides itself on being a "green campus". The facility I'm training in is an entirely glass building. Seriously, the whole building is a giant window. This I assume saves on lighting costs. In fact, the campus is in the process of building an additional training center next door to where I'm sitting now which will be the "greenest building in America". I respect the hell out of this.

More updates to come as I encounter more Phillyness.

NHL Winter Classic

As you well know, I attended this game with the now legendary Reese, my mom and IDK my BFF Rollo. The first outdoor NHL game in the good old US of A didn't disappoint. In fact, it turned out to be everything I could have imagined, and more!

The weather was precisely how I dreamed it to be: moderate to heavy snowfall at times, cloudy and very cold. The crowd was impressive - 70,000+ strong - complete with Buffalo fans who never acted like assholes, but made all of us Pens fans know that we certainly aren't welcome here. Speaking of Pens fans, there was a large gathering of them that I got to Hi-5's and hugs from while on our way into the parking lot. During this ruckus (and believe me, it was RUCKUS) one brave Buffalo fan draped a Sabres flag over the front of the Vibe. He was quickly met with a chant of "THIS GUY SUCKS! THIS GUY SUCKS!" I love being in enemy territory. Sidney looked like he was a god among men. His play was so inspired and filled with raw energy that he appeared give life to his otherwise freezing teammates. What made it one of the best games I've ever seen was the fact that it went into a shootout. This was the first shootout I've ever witnessed live. I can tell you that I was pretty concerned about the Pens' fate after Conklin let in the first goal of the shootout, but as Rollo and I prepared the chant of "MVP! MVP!" for the final shooter, we knew we were in good hands. Crosby wouldn't let us down.

The good things aside, there were some crappy parts of the whole trip. First off, Ralph Wilson Stadium must be the Mellon Arena of the NFL. It should be torn down and forgotten in its entirety. The seating was awful, featuring LONG rows of bleacher seats that were small and uncomfortable. Our seats were in the very middle of a long row, not easy to get to! Another crumby thing was that their awful stadium had overpriced beers! At $7.50 for a cup of Guinness, the only good part about it was that, thanks to the weather, it could only get colder. Then comes lake effect snow. 4+ inches of snow and a 4.5 hour drive can quickly turn into 12 hours at the helm of the Vibe. Nasty stuff. We counted 11 wrecks, one of which was a combo Uhaul-while-towing-a-passenger-car. Nice work, that one was.

I'd go again if they had one next year, even if the Pens weren't involved.