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Hayes-y Feeling

Spring training is almost here, and I just ordered an item that significantly raised my excitement level for the upcoming season.

My Washington Nationals have a set of four presidential mascots (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt) who each wear a jersey emblazoned with their first name and a number corresponding to their spot in office.

But those are four pretty obvious picks if you’re going to honor an American president. If you know me at all, it’s probably no surprise that for a few seasons I’ve thought about expanding that list. Fortunately, Major League Baseball allows you to order custom jerseys and shirts with the name and number of your choice.

So now this is on its way to me:

That’s Rutherford B. Hayes, our 19th president.

For a long time, I thought I would get James K. Polk, who has the distinction of being the subject of a They Might Be Giants song. He also has a cool nickname – “Napoleon of the stump” – related to his oratory skills.

One problem with Mr. Polk is that his president number is the same as Nationals star Ryan Zimmerman. And while my hope is that fellow nerds will see and appreciate honoring an obscure president in this way, having “James K” on the back of the shirt seems a little obvious for that quest. Plus he died of cholera, and that’s not any kind of message I want to send about myself.

Rutherford, on the other hand, has it all. His beard is amazing. When he was first elected to Congress, he didn’t even campaign. Mark Twain supported his White House run. He named one of his kids Manning.

Some people will think I’m a guy named Eric Rutherford who felt the need to get his own name on a Nats shirt. Only the truly cool kids will understand.

February 17, 2012 baseball nerdness Uncategorized
Lame Lameness

I did it. I made it through an entire week without injuring myself. This may seem like an odd milestone to celebrate, but given that last week I hurt myself while walking, I’ll take it.

There’s nothing like getting a diagnosis, then reading more about it online and finding you are even lamer than you thought (pun intended). My injury is a meniscus tear, which WebMD says “can occur when you lift something heavy or play sports.”

Was I doing either of those things? No. I simply walked onto a Metro train, planted my right foot and turned left to walk up the aisle to a seat. The result was a sharp pain in my knee that I expected to go away while I slept that day, but got progressively worse throughout the week, eventually making it difficult to walk at all.

Fortunately it doesn’t appear to have been a major tear, so I should be back to things like running pretty soon.

It’s also great to know I have the support and sympathy of my friends and family. Roommate CA’s first question upon hearing the diagnosis was whether I would have some sort of brace or device he could make fun of this time. He was referring to this, my friend for eight weeks during the great Stress Fracture Winter of 2009-10:

Sadly, for him, there’s nothing of the sort with this injury. Though I still have the boot in my closet somewhere in case of emergency.

February 10, 2012 injury Uncategorized
Hair Today, Gone Monday

Today I had the urge to get a haircut, but opted not to because the Giants are playing in the Super Bowl.

To a non-sports fan (and perhaps to the more rational among us), that logic seems crazy. After all, there’s nothing about the length of my hair that will in any way affect how my favorite team plays on Sunday. But for those who won’t shift positions in their seat during crunch time of a game for fear of throwing off whatever is working for their team, the ones who cross their fingers and make wear ridiculous-looking rally caps, there’s something to it.

I last got a haircut on December 13. Five days later the Giants lost to the Redskins in a listless performance that represented a low point of their season. It seemed unlikely they would make the playoffs. They haven’t lost since, winning their final two regular season games and three straight in the playoffs.

Analysts would probably credit things like having some of their injured defensive players return to the lineup, or the continued maturation of an inexperienced receiving corps. But there’s no way I would forgive myself if I visited the fine folks at Hair Cuttery and then watched the Giants lose to the Patriots.

The hair can wait until Monday.

February 3, 2012 football Uncategorized
I Bent My Wookie

For years I had a lot of random stuff decorating my bedroom, mainly carryovers from things I had in my college dorm room that really had no meaning.

Now when I look around the room, whether I see something on the walls, on my desk or dresser, I can think of at least one story about that object and a person tied to it. I think I’m going to share some of those stories, though it’s very possible I’ll get distracted and this will be the first in a one-part series.

Today I want to tell you about Chewbacca. Anyone worth any pop culture salt knows who Chewbacca is, but you don’t know this one. He’s much smaller, coming in at about 3 inches in height, but don’t let his size fool you. He’s still a badass.

I got Chewie on Monday, December 29, 1997. Before you get too frightened at my awesome recall skillz, I have to admit that on my own I would have at best guessed the year. I was a freshman in high school, and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., had an exhibit called “Star Wars: The Magic of Myth” (note the very 1997ness of that website).

In a word, it was awesome. The exhibit had the suits for Chewie and Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2, a Stormtrooper and others, along with the models for all the different spacecraft including the greatest ship ever made: the Millenium Falcon.

December 29 was during our Christmas break at school, and I remember my mom and my Nana picking me up from track practice along with my little brother (a huge Star Wars fan). You needed a ticket to get into the exhibition, and thanks to my penchant for collecting stubs from just about everything I’ve ever been to, I still have that one:

After we made our way through the exhibit, we naturally ended up in the special Smithsonian Star Wars gift shop. I browsed around for a little bit looking at the admittedly cool stuff, but there was nothing I couldn’t live without. Nana, however, insisted that she buy me something, so I went over to a series of bins with the smallest items I could find. They were little figurines of all the major characters, and I settled on Chewie, by far the best character in the series.

For a long time he resided on my various desks, but now has a far better home in my quasi-entertainment center guarding the Blu-ray player.

February 1, 2012 Nana nostalgia Uncategorized
Delicious Victory

It is only fair that I warn you all in advance — my luck in making random bets appears to be back.

I wrote in September about a streak of bad luck regarding wagers with roommate CA. These were $1 bets on things like the number of points that would be scored in a Susquehanna University football game or whether our other roommate would go for a bike ride within two weeks.

But thanks to a bet with a coworker, I feel things have turned around.

During the Christmas season, one of the people in the newsroom decorated her cubicle with Christmas lights. After the holiday passed and the lights remained, my coworker who sits near the festive workspace said she was sure they would be up until at least March.

That sounded plausible to me, but also kind of crazy. So I suggested we bet on it, initially going with the over-under style and me saying the lights would be gone before March. Winner received the breakfast of their choice. I thought that seemed a little too easy, so we switched to “whoever is closer” — I had roughly February 5, and I think my coworker had March 15.

On January 15, I got an email — “what do you like for breakfast?”

My reply: “VICTORY!!!! Which to me tastes like an Egg McMuffin.”

Victory is delicious.

January 29, 2012 Uncategorized
To Future Bad Decisions

Four years ago my work days started at 2 a.m., which meant having to think a little differently about my routine.

Instead of flipping on the news or SportsCenter while I was getting ready, I watched Conan. If I wanted to get food on the way to work, there weren’t many options, but I had the ability to roll through the Taco Bell drive-thru for breakfast. Fortunately for my health I only did that a few times.

But it did always seem odd that Taco Bell didn’t serve breakfast on a normal person’s schedule. Countless other places offer breakfast burritos, so why wouldn’t they do it too? The line every morning at the McDonald’s down the street from where I live now shows there’s no shortage of people making poor life decisions (I say as a lover of Egg McMuffins). And yet, at the same time the Taco Bell next door is closed.

That may not last. This morning I saw a tweet that both excited and horrified me:

That’s right, Taco Bell is rolling out breakfast — or keeping with their marketing campaign, “First Meal.”

It’s too early to tell if the test markets will be successful enough to make this a nationwide thing. But just in case it does and I get sucked into a world I know I shouldn’t, I’ll go ahead and start working out more now.

January 27, 2012 food Taco Bell Uncategorized
High-Five

[Note: For sports haters, scroll down for baby-related content]

Before last weekend, I had only ever seen a team I root for play in an opponent’s stadium once, and even that sort of didn’t count.

Shortly after Major League Baseball began interleague play, my family went to see the Atlanta Braves (my former team) at Baltimore’s Camden Yards. I discount that one both because I have swapped allegiances (let’s go Nats!) and because back then I didn’t mind watching the Orioles too.

On Friday, my brothers and I saw the Washington Capitals play the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh. My older brother lives there, so it doubled as a chance to visit. The Caps played disgracefully, but we still had a great time. It was hard to argue with our view, which was much easier to acquire down there than at the Verizon Center:

The real highlight of the trip though was getting a high-five from my niece. The first night we were there she totally left me hanging, which from a 15-month-old is pretty demoralizing. Fortunately I found her weakness — peek-a-boo.

We played a modified version in which she would bring me her blanket and lie down on the ground, then I would put the blanket on her, declare my inability to find her and finally pull it off to everyone’s delight. Of course then she decided to start lying down farther and farther away each time, to the point where I was throwing the blanket as far as I could just to reach her. She found that hilarious.

She was also pretty entertained by looking out the window at the rain. Notice she is sitting on what looks like a toddler-size ottoman. In fact, that’s exactly what it is. Here’s her Uncle Pat testing out the full chair-ottoman combo:

Some would say he’s too big for that piece of furniture, but I would argue that as the baby of my generation, it’s just right.

January 24, 2012 family hockey Uncategorized
The Squeaky Shoe Gets Replaced

Walking down the polished floor at work earlier this week, a strange noise filled the hallway.

It was the faint sound of my footsteps — nothing more. That may seem like an obvious observation, but given that I was wearing a pair of brown leather shoes, the near silence was a relief.

I got a new pair shoes last weekend, and the quiet walk came during the first day I wore them. The pair they replaced were similar — a different brand and 12 years older, but from a short distance you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference by looking. But your ears would know.

This older pair, which served me valiantly through the years, had one major flaw. The soles would let off a high squeaking noise on any hard floor with the least bit of polish to it. Imagine submerging your shoes in a puddle and walking inside without wiping your feet. That’s what they sounded like at all times — wet or dry.

So it’s nice to now be able to walk without thinking people are judging me to be a delinquent who can’t wipe his feet and without making everyone start to wonder how it could be raining when the weather’s nice.

Out with the old, in with the new

Buying the new shoes was a fun experience. Since I’ve (still) spent more of my working life in the retail footwear industry than anything else, it’s odd to be on the other side of that experience. Little things like being allowed to actually sit down on the benches feel wrong. I even find myself tucking wayward laces into the display shoes and straightening them on the shelves as I walk by.

I wonder if anyone else in retail, or with that background, catches themselves doing those things without thinking, or is compelled to inform the sales associate of their connection to the business. Of course I found a perfectly normally place in our conversation to slip that in — because I’m smooth like that — and it actually set off a whole round of dorky shoe technology talk that I kind of miss from my selling days.

What I miss more is working just down the hall from a Cinnabon and a Taco Bell. Though for the sake of my health, maybe it’s a good thing I don’t work in that mall anymore.

January 19, 2012 Cinnabon mall shoes Uncategorized
Gooooooooooooal(s)

I’ve never been the type of person to have a five-year plan or a list of 1,001 things to do before I die.

It’s not that there aren’t some things I’d like to do. Rather, I think seeing the utterly unpredictable way in which life played out as those five-year periods passed has made me less prone to trying to plan out what’s coming next.

To some people, like AV, that makes no sense. She has 387 life goals (and counting) and they’re all good ones. I was talking to her about those one day and she naturally asked for mine, and after a lot of thought I reluctantly named my writing project. I say reluctantly because it’s not like I have ever written down that I want to write a book and get it published. I thought of it more as something that would be cool if it happened someday.

But now, you can count it as an official goal because of something AV told me (which I believe her mom told her): A goal is a dream with a deadline. This may be her new favorite thing to tell me. Repeatedly. But that’s a good thing. I have a dream, it’s getting a deadline, so now it counts as a goal.

There may be some others joining it, because again, the list didn’t exist at all before now. Part of what I like about the writing project is that it’s a creative expression, like what I write here, which is far outside the newswriting I do professionally. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a totally committed journalist, but there are lots of times I think I should be doing something more creative with my career.

Enter Mindy Kaling’s book, “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?” If you’re not familiar with her, Kaling plays Kelly Kapoor on the NBC show “The Office” and also serves as one of the show’s writers. She is really funny and one of those people who seem to excel at anything.

In the book, Kaling talks candidly about her childhood and the kinds of kids she spent time with growing up. She describes forming bonds with creative people and the process of realizing the types of personalities she has no interest in being around. This, of course, is something we all do, but a lot of her path felt very similar in that regard to my own trek through high school, college and beyond.

There’s something really fun and inspiring about being around people who are into creating things — in whatever format — those who can be a little less linear in their thinking and indulge in silliness at appropriate times without worrying about being judged.

Kaling got noticed when she and her friend wrote and acted in a play about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon having the script for “Good Will Hunting” literally fall from the ceiling in front of them. That is, the two women played Affleck and Damon themselves, with a story that has no basis in reality. But it was a hit. They sold out shows and eventually she got the offer to write for “The Office.”

I’m always fascinated by how others approach the creative process and encouraged when I read or hear things that sound very familiar. Kaling says she has found her “productive-writing-to-screwing-around ratio to be one to seven. So, for every eight-hour day of writing, there is only one good productive hour of work being done.” The rest of the time is taken up by things that are in no way important in a to-do list kind of way, but who knows how vital watching YouTube videos of babies dancing is to her final product.

I’m very much the same way, but my procrastination involves things like reading my old blog posts, thinking about going for a run, deciding not to run, updating my Netflix queue and wondering how many more bowls of Cocoa Puffs I can squeeze out of my current box. But whatever, distractions happen. Kaling is proof that in your spare time you can create something great that takes you in a fulfilling direction.

Other things we share:

-Inability to reliably throw a frisbee with any skill
-History of quoting comedic works to our head-shaking mothers
-Diplomas from small-town colleges — “If you’re a kid who was not especially a star in your high school, I recommend going to a college in the middle of nowhere.”
-(Related) Finding your own way as life progresses –“What I’ve noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also a big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it’s so wonderfully fair.”

She even supports my one-time life plans involving Natalie Portman: “That’s nice. You can have that. That’s not hurting anybody.”

Thanks, Mindy.

January 12, 2012 books Uncategorized
Call Me Aunt Clara

When I was a sophomore in college, I purchased a baby-size bunny suit off eBay.

It cost me $4 and has become a fixture of our family Christmas since that first year when I gave it to my little brother. I wanted to get a full-size suit so that he could be just like Ralphie from “A Christmas Story,” but those proved to be prohibitively expensive, so I settled for the mini version.

It was sufficiently funny.

Since then, whoever got it the previous year has passed it on, giving a certain sense of anticipation to every gift you get with the chance of finding a bonus bunny suit inside. Even those who are new to the family get indoctrinated into the tradition, like my sister-in-law Bethany at her first Christmas with us:

But this year, all of my dreams came true. We finally found someone who could actually put this thing on. My niece Madelyn didn’t make the trip for Christmas last year, but this time around not only came, but happened to be the perfect size. Who knew I would pick correctly back in 2002?

Can’t wait to see who she gives it to next year.

January 8, 2012 Christmas family Uncategorized video