Up to Date

It’s been an interesting month.

I’ve written a few amazing entries in my head, but sadly, sometimes for me that’s enough. Because writers (and no, I don’t count myself in that group; I’m more of a writer-groupie-wanna-be than anything. You’re not really a writer until you get paid to do it ) are such an odd group, and everyone’s method is unique I have no idea if I am among the common lot or strange in my methods.

When I sit down to write, I might have a spark of an idea. Normally it’s an opening line or a phrase, some nugget of a seed of a thought that rises to the surface of my brain. And off my fingers go. I have no idea where the thoughts will lead, I just crank them out much like you are reading them right now (this will also explain why there are so many typos or missing words in my writings – I’m typically a rough draft kind of guy. I write it once and that’s it; still another reason why I am not yet a writer, they work at their craft, and rework it and revisit – I cough it up and move on, like a hair ball).

That’s mostly how my brain works. I am mid-stream in a thought process and I have all these asides and caveats and qualifiers to the things that I am saying. Sometimes I am so concerned about being misunderstood that I feel the need to speak with deliberate cadence or not at all. But when I do, my word choice, even the choice of words here is intentional, phrased a certain away. There are dozens of hints to conversations of past that are scattered through out for people to pick through if they see them.

Normally my conversations with Eric are peppered with them, and the more obscure the better (he always wins by the way) – though to my credit, I did recall that Richard Matheson also wrote “What Dreams May Come” last night.

But if I am away from a computer, I spit the process out in my head and then there you go, it’s done. There is no way for me to recapture the dance of words that played out in my mind. Mélaine and I teach a class together for the education department and for each learning block we film a wrap up session of all the things the students should have learned during that period. This semester we are filling things in advance. Our producer (for lack of a better title) wanted an idea of what we were going to say so he could start the creative process of setting up scenes and camera work. It was difficult trying to get him to understand that we don’t interact that way; that the nature of our “conversation” is organic and free flowing; symbiotic in execution. I like that.

It’s too easy for me to think that I need naught from the world and that I am better off in my own little world. I like to need people. I like to know that I am better because I need them.

So all of that is to say, that I’m alive and doing well and while I’ve written you numerous times, they have been only in my head, and that if you’d get off our buttocks and learn some damn ESP, you would have gotten them. Rotten lazy readers.

I took an exciting trip with Mark to St. Louis in the first part of the month. I also took Ed.

Who’s Ed you ask?

Ed is our DIET team mascot. Maybe mascot is the wrong word. I think he’s better described as the DIET team proxy. I don’t so much as we picked Ed, as Ed picked us. Amber, Mélaine and myself were looking for an external source of creativity one day. Something that we could use to identify with, and just be a little goofy. The three of us work as the creative heart of our department (DIET is a division), and being creative on demand is an exhausting task. So we wanted a little something to spark us. We had considered getting a giant Larry of Veggie Tales fame (I mean sure, we could have gone with Bob, but that was too easy, and my ego will only allow for one Bob in our group – always room for a Larry, but only one Bob). Our name is DIET, and a big veggie made total sense. So we hit every quasi-religious retailer in Fort Wayne with no luck what so ever. At our last stop (we had already been to 4 stores at that point I believe) I noticed that there was a novelty store and all but dragged the ladies in there. And there sitting on a shelf was a huge devil duck. It just fit. We let it percolate for while and a day or two later Amber and I took up and picked Ed and brought him home (we also go some Nun-Chucks which made Mélaine giggle like a school girl, and some Flying Ninjas for Amber because she. like the ninjas, kicks ass. It’s true, Amber once threw down with a donkey, so ass was the right word to use there – but that’s another story).

Ed (Evil Duck – aka Edward Duckworth – you can look him up on FaceBook) travels with us whenever we go on work related events, and when one of us takes off on a vacation. The assignment is simple, when you go, you take Ed and you take pictures of Ed where ever you go.

So far this year Ed has been to Las Veags, Seattle, New York, St. Louis, our big-wig Christmas Party, and off to London.

It was on our trip to St. Louis that Mark got to meet Ed. I had only one goal on that trip (well aside to learn about setting up iTunes University and integrating it with an authentication system) and that was to get a picture of the two of them together. Now I love Mark (not in that way – its funny, Michelle and I were having a conversation about that, how as kid you have to qualify like and love – I like her, but I don’t like like her.), I think he has a great sense of humor (arid would be a good word) but to those who don’t know him, he might come across as cantankerous. So I had no idea what he would think of Ed, but sure enough before we had left the airport, I had snapped a photo of him. It was a great trip, and Mark and Ed had a great time.

On Saturday (12/22) Michelle and I took off for Detroit for the Lions game. We stopped in Ann Arbor to have lunch with my parents. I fighting a nasty head ache so I wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but it’s always good to see them none the less.

We made it to Detroit without incident, stayed at the same Holiday Inn Express we always stay at when we head to Detroit (because it’s super close to the people mover, yet far enough away we aren’t caught in the traffic flow after the game). I was going to take Ed with us, but I didn’t know how security at the game would take to Ed (as it was they made Michelle throw away her umbrella as it was considered a dangerous weapon, I can only guess what they would have thought of a horny little duck – and I say horny because he has horns).

What I did notice most about being outside of Fort Wayne, was the common question, “Smoking or non-smoking”. I forgot what it was like to taste menthol with my blackened chicken.

The game was great (well considering it was the Lions) and Barry Sanders was there, so Michelle was in heaven. I think she even noticed I was there. I sat next to this father and son from Canada. They lived an hour away, but it took them 3 hours to get through the border crossing. Apparently there was some sort of mishap in the tunnel, and then getting through security and all that fun stuff. He works for an advertising agency and got the tickets for his birthday. However, the original tickets were pretty crappy, but they were ones that someone else had won in an auction, didn’t claim and then a few days before the game did decide to claim, so his company went online and bought him these seats. They were also having problems because Ford Field doesn’t like to take Canadian dollars. I offered to buy them drinks, but the ATM ended up spitting out some green backs for them, so all was good. Our row even won free hot dogs or something.

The trip home was a bit more traitorous as we experienced high winds and several spots of white-out conditions. It was a bit baffling watching the car in front of you just completely disappear. But we made it home safely.

Christmas came and went – a good time was had by all. Dafyd got some hand weights he wanted. Jace various pokemon merchandise. They both got a Nintendo Wii and several games (plus all the controllers, rechargers and the slew of extra stuf you have to buy when you take on purchasing a video game system). They loved it, so it was worth it. We didn’t get a whole lot of time to play with it as I promised Kara would I have them back to Grabill by 9:00 am. But we did get a couple of rounds of Wii Boxing in. Michelle and I tried it out later and she totally slaughtered me in bowling (apparently if you suck at bowling in real life, you can suck on the Wii as well).

Later in the day we headed out with some friends to go see, “I am Legend.”

It was better than I thought it was going to be. Eric had mentioned that critics had said the dog acted better than Will Smith in the movie, which I totally thought wasn’t true. I thought the dog came in late a few times and dropped a line or two. The movie had a lot to chew on, and I am sure that in context it has a lot of good things to think on, so the book has been added to my pile of stuffs to read.

So that brings me to today. Michelle is working, Eric and I might go to the mall (I know, dreadful), the boys might be here early, I might get some more reading and or writing done, but who knows, the day is open before me, and it’s just now 8:00 am, so meh, anything is possible.

Enjoy the day.