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I’ve Been There

It’s not often I watch something on TV or check out a clip online and see some place I’ve been.

Of course, that doesn’t count big things like the U.S. Capitol or New York, but rather more unique experiences.

This morning I got an email updating the latest news from the Ice House Cafe, a restaurant and bar my family has been going to forever. Well maybe not literally forever, but often when I’m there the bartender, Dan, will tell other patrons stories about me and my siblings as little kids climbing up on the stools and demanding he change the television to a sports game.

One piece of news was that the Oyster Bar area was recently used in a music video by R&B artist Akshan. It’s that part of the restaurant where my family has spent most of our time, including many years of eating at the exact same table by the front window.

A really great part about the Ice House is the decor, which you could easily spend hours examining. That also makes it easy to see that in the video, around the 3:25 mark, Akshan is sitting exactly where I have sat dozens of times. From there you can look outside at the cars passing by and across the street at what was for many years a sports card shop.

The real perk — in addition to the sweet old-time football picture — is that right next to his left knee, there’s a heat vent, which is an excellent addition to any wintertime dining experience.

December 1, 2011 family food Uncategorized
And The Shirts Came Back

It took a series of text messages, a home watch company, a multi-part chain of custody and more than five months, but I have now been reunited with three shirts that for a short time threatened my sanity.

In June, I went on vacation in Naples, Fla., where I stayed at my aunt’s house. Two weeks later, I did some laundry and afterward noticed an empty hanger on the left side of my closet. A maroon polo shirt was supposed to go there, right next to the orange one of the same style.

I double-checked the dryer, the washing machine, the space in between them and behind, but didn’t find the shirt. Back in the closet I searched every nook where it could have fallen — nothing. I dragged out the suitcase I had taken to Florida, opened every pocket, and still found nothing. Checks of my roommate’s closet, the guest bedroom, under my bed and at least three repeats of all of the above still resulted in no shirt.

If you know me at all, you’re probably aware that I’m ridiculously organized. I don’t lose anything. Ever.

I asked my then-former, now-current roommate (don’t ask, long story) if he had maybe borrowed it one night when he was staying with us. No dice. I searched the closet one more time, this round focusing on the right side (yes, there’s a system involved) and noticed two more empty hangers.

WAIT. WHAT SHIRTS ARE THOSE?!……..FLORIDA!!!!!

It all came back to me. When I arrived down there and unpacked, I hung up those three shirts in the closet — none of which I wore while I was there.

After my revelation, I texted my aunt, explaining how I was driving myself crazy looking and asked if she could check the closet the next time she was at the house.

“Don’t go nuts,” she said. “Don’t need more nuts in the family!!”

So true. Concerned for my sanity, she sent someone over to look, and sure enough the shirts were hanging right where I left them.

Flash forward to last weekend in New Jersey, where we were visiting for Thanksgiving. I walked into my grandparents’ house and was immediately handed my shirts.

Sanity fully intact.

November 28, 2011 family not smart Uncategorized
Belle of the Ball

To those who doubted whether future wife Mila Kunis (Natalie who?) would show up to the Marine Corps ball last weekend, well, she went.

You may remember that back in July a sergeant invited her to be his date via YouTube, and after the prodding of “Friends With Benefits” co-star Justin Timberlake, Mila accepted. I forgive those who thought that given the light-hearted tone of her conversation with Timberlake that maybe she wasn’t serious.

While I think it’s cool that she went, Mila definitely needs to consult Timberlake for some PR tips. The stories about her ball are basically that she went, looked great and was really nice. No comments from her perspective at all.

Contrast that with Timberlake, who attended a ball of his own the weekend before. Those stories are overflowing with him saying what an amazing time had and how honored he was to be there. Great for both of the stars to go, but he definitely could not have handled the entire thing any better.

The best part about Mila’s ball is the reporting from a local television station in Greenville, N.C., where the event was held. They went totally TMZ for this story, getting paparazzi-style video of her speeding away from the airport wearing sunglasses in the back seat of an SUV.

The flood of Marines asking celebs to accompany them to balls this year reminded me of the movie “My Date With Drew.” It’s sliiiightly possible you’ve never heard of it, but given that it’s a documentary I only happened across on Netflix one day, that’s excusable.

The basic premise is that the filmmaker has had a crush on actress Drew Barrymore since they were kids. As an adult, he decides he has nothing to lose in trying to get a date with her and documents his efforts with a camera. I won’t give away the ending, but it’s actually a pretty interesting movie showing how some celebrities are more open than others to acting like normal people.

November 21, 2011 Uncategorized
No Braniacs Channel

Sometimes this country really frustrates me.

I’m not talking about Occupy Wall Street protests, the Tea Party, the super committee or President Obama, but rather television viewers.

Last week, NBC announced they were suspending the show “Community,” which seems like the entertainment industry way of saying your dog isn’t dead, it just went upstate to live at a nice farm. It’s also the latest Show With a Small, Passionate Fan Base and Critical Acclaim That Nobody Watches. And that’s really a shame.

I love that show. It’s a comedy, but doesn’t have the normal trappings of the genre. They change formats and do crazy things, like turning entire episodes into a paintball war or a claymation Christmas story. One episode this season went in more of a quantum mechanics/choose your own adventure style, showing how a roll of a dice could unleash seven different possible ways for the same setup to play out.

It’s a show that takes chances and tells stories in a different way, eschewing the more simplified, safe episodes that kept “Friends” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” on the air for so long. The result is that some people don’t get it or won’t take their own chance to give it a shot. Sure, sometimes the show’s style leaves even me wondering what’s going on, but I love that even more. Where so many “Friends” episodes are indistinguishable from one another, most of the “Community” offerings are distinct.

We’ve seen this scenario play out too many times before. Gone are shows like “Arrested Development” and “Freaks & Geeks,” while networks stick with shows I find inconceivable anyone would enjoy watching. We’ll lose “Community” but NBC will continue airing “Whitney” and “Chuck.” Don’t get me started on the Kardashians or Real Housewives. (Yes, I remember that I watch “Jersey Shore,” but I’d gladly trade it for “Community.”)

I understand that television is a business and you need ratings to make money. So why not try something like switching time slots before axing the show? NBC recognized “Whitney” sucks on Thursdays after “The Office” and moved it to Wednesday. Why not push “Community” from 8 p.m. to 9:30 and see how it goes? Right now it’s up against “The Big Bang Theory” on CBS, a show that likely grabs some of the same demographics (including me). I guess the easier answer for them is trying something “new” and adding a Chelsea Handler show to their schedule instead.

In September, Wired magazine ran a feature on Dan Harmon, the show’s creator. It’s a fascinating look into his process and his path to coming up with the show. It’s definitely worth your time if you find delving into the creative process of others as interesting as I do.

Here’s to hoping NBC changes its mind.

[Note: According to additional research, it appears “Chuck” is ending in January.]

November 19, 2011 television Uncategorized
Precious Medals

One of the great feelings after finishing a marathon or half marathon is going through the food area just past the finishing line and finding all kinds of delicious things to stuff in your starving face.

But before you get there, there’s a person handing out medals to all the finishers, something you can dangle around your neck to show everyone you survived the ordeal. Some of them are pretty cool looking, others are a little lame, but I put them on display just the same.

I was shocked to read in the latest issue of Runner’s World that according to respondents in their poll, only 29 percent kept their finisher’s medals, and just 16 percent held onto age group and other awards. (For those who aren’t familiar, races often give prizes to the overall winners as well as to the top finisher’s in sub-categories like Men Age 20-24.)

Now I’m not wearing my medals around to social events, but I certainly would never just throw them away. I keep them on top of my dresser, right next to my running watches and keys where I’ll see them before every time I go out for a run.

My collection is pretty varied. In the back, there’s a trophy showing that in 2006 I came in first place in my age group in a 5K. I especially like that one as a sign of humility since that was by far my worst 5K time ever, and I only came in first place because I was the only one in my age group who entered the race.

That same year I was on a little bit of a quest to win more age group awards, so I tried to cherry-pick smaller races where my chances might be a little better. Didn’t quite work out as I planned, but I do have a nice 3rd place medal from the Vienna Elementary 5K.

The rest are more legitimate — 2nd place in my age group from the much more contested Herndon Festival 5K (a personal best at the time), then the string of medals from my five half marathons and one full marathon.

By far the coolest one is from the 26.2 with Donna Half Marathon — not confusing at all — which I did in 2009 just weeks after returning to running from a stress fracture. It’s the one in the middle here:

My newest one is on the right. I’m not going to lie, it’s the ugliest one, but then again the race was sponsored by McDonald’s so I’m not sure we should expect more.

November 16, 2011 McDonald's running Uncategorized
Run, Neb, Run

I’m just going to throw this out there — last weekend rocked.

The big event was traveling to Richmond to run a half marathon, which seemed like a bit of an overly ambitious task given that I hadn’t exactly trained a ton for the race. In case that sounds like I’m just being humble, consider that when I set my personal best at this distance two years ago I was running about 25 miles per week. There have been several months this year in which I didn’t run a total of 25 miles.

With that in mind, I started the race with my sister-in-law Bethany, as we worked towards a somewhat lofty goal of finishing in 1 hour 50 minutes. The last time we ran a half marathon together was when I did get my best time (1:43:08), and this course was much flatter, so at least I had the right conditions going for me.

In the first mile Bethany asked me how I thought our pace was:

C: “Good…a little fast maybe.”
B: “Fast?! I was thinking slow.”

In order to hit our goal time, we needed to keep a pace of about 8:23 per mile. Our first mile time — 8:45. We picked it up from there cranking out 8:04, 8:04, 8:07, 8:41, 8:07, with watch-less, psychic Bethany guessing our sixth mile time exactly on her first try.

From that it seems like things were going great, but we were asking each other after each mile, “We can’t actually hold this pace, right?” Fortunately we slowed down a touch for the next three, going 8:13, 8:37, 8:25.

In Raleigh in 2009, I went ahead after mile 7 and felt great picking up the pace straight through the finish. This time, I left Bethany with a high-five after mile 9 and as I surged ahead immediately felt like I may have made a poor move. My left knee started hurting and I could feel the effects of all those early fast miles catch up to me quickly.

Fortunately, as I walked for a second at the water stop in the next mile (8:24), the knee quieted down a bit and my brain was able to convince my body that with just three miles to go I should just suck it up and go. I also did some quick math and told myself that if I could just keep them under 9 minutes, I could reach what seemed like kind of a crazy goal just an hour earlier.

The result was closing out with miles of 8:20, 8:14 and 7:52, and covering the final tenth of a mile in 42 seconds to finish at 1:48:41 overall. My second-best half marathon ever on easily the least training.

Given that my best time came after a ton of training and was followed two weeks later by a stress fracture in my foot, maybe there’s something to this whole non-training thing. Though as we walked to the car after the race, I couldn’t help but think, “Man, what if I had trained more?”

Maybe next year.

And next year I think may be a requirement. My aunt and cousins in Richmond were awesome hosts, giving us a ride to the start line at 6 a.m., feeding us and cheering us on. They had as much fun as we did, and it was great to experience that with them.

Another highlight, my brother’s forethought when signing up for the race. They gave us the option of putting our names on our race numbers, which means random spectators on the course can call out your name and give you encouragement. I didn’t have mine on there, Bethany had her name, but Ben, who ran the full marathon, went with this:

Go Neb!

November 15, 2011 family running Uncategorized
Constructive Boredom

We’ve all experienced boredom at work, it happens, but we don’t always make the best use of that opportunity.

You may know that in a former life I spent quite a bit of time in retail, including a stint as a supervisor at a shoe store in the mall. At some point our store ran a promotion giving customers a discount on a new pair of shoes if they gave us their old ones. I’m pretty sure we sent the old ones to some sort of charity, unless they were really gross in which case they went straight in the trash.

The response was kind of shocking. I think we were giving something like $10 off, but an enormous number of people took us up on the offer. Of course, that meant finding a place to store all of these shoes as they accumulated throughout the day.

That’s where boredom came in. Blessed with absolutely nothing to do but listen to a music system we all hated, me and two of the other managers set about creating an old-shoe storage system. We called it the TUB, or Trade Up Box.

We took a bunch of different sized cardboard boxes we had left over from a recent shipment and created what was essentially a giant mailbox. It was as tall as me, with a big flap near the top so you could flip it open and toss the newest old pair of shoes down the chute.

It took the three of us — the highest paid employees in the store at the time — about half an hour to construct, which I think was definitely a solid use of company time. The owner of our franchise visited after we made it and complimented our work. He even suggested we send photos of the TUB to the other stores in our chain.

I was reminded of this great day last week during lunch at Taco Bell with one of the other former managers. He was brave enough to try the XXL Chalupa that was the center of my World Series bet with CA. He seems to have survived the ordeal, so maybe there’s hope for CA and I when we make good on our wager.

November 3, 2011 mall Uncategorized
Hey Taylor

It’s been a long time since I mentioned Taylor Swift here, mainly because her quest to ruin my life appears to be over.

We never had direct peace talks, but both sides seemed to have lost the will to continue the fight and we settled back into a sort of neutral stance. However, that’s not true for her and another member of my family.

Last weekend I went to see a “Moneyball” with my mom and brother Pat. Mom, a country music fan, was driving and when the very first notes of a Taylor Swift song came on the radio she immediately changed the station. This was not nearly the first time I had witnessed this phenomenon, but in case there was any doubt as to her feelings towards Ms. Swift, my mom added, “I don’t understand why everyone else thinks she’s so wonderful.”

Last night mom and Pat went to a hockey game at the Verizon Center, and my brother sent me a text message saying they saw a Taylor Swift poster go by as they went up the escalator to their level. “She’s trying to follow mom,” he said.

I get that maybe Taylor was tired of feuding with someone taller than her, but I don’t get why she has to keep pursuing these quarrelsome relationships. Hey Taylor, it’s OK to just play your guitar and sing. I’m perfectly fine with that. My cousin, who has used your picture as his Facebook profile photo, is definitely fine with that.

Though maybe you shouldn’t do it when my mom is around.

November 2, 2011 family Taylor Swift Uncategorized
Stunt Double

Facebook has added in a lot of features over the years — some good, some not so good — but there’s one aspect of their technology that may help solve a lifelong question.

If you meet me, there are certain facts that are likely to elicit what I consider overblown responses about their novelty, mainly that I am left handed and have a twin sister. Yes, I understand neither of these are tremendously common, but each brings its own series of questions I have answered a hundred times.

With the twin thing one of the most frequent questions is if we look alike. The answer, I say, really depends on whom you ask. To some people there’s a big resemblance while others think we don’t look anything alike.

Thanks to Facebook’s face recognition feature when you upload photos, we may have an answer. At least, we now know what computers think:

I uploaded a picture the other day with all of my siblings in it, and Facebook only tried to tag one of the faces. It’s mine, but Facebook think it’s my sister.

What do you think? Here’s perhaps the greatest picture of us that will ever be taken:

And one more for good measure:

October 31, 2011 family technology Uncategorized
Crazy Dreams Come True

Revisiting movies or television shows from your childhood is a dangerous thing.

There’s great potential for nostalgia and reconnecting with something you enjoyed in the past, but equally great danger that you’ll hate it and wonder what the heck little you was thinking.

This morning I put aside any fears of ruining good memories and delved back into the 1993 film “Rookie of the Year,” about a 12-year-old kid who hurts his arm slipping on a baseball and heals in such a freakish way that his 103 mph fastball earns him a spot on the Chicago Cubs.

I saw this movie in the theater for my 10th birthday, and the main character, Henry, became my hero both because he played professional baseball as a child and also because he got to star in a Pepsi commercial. That seemed like a pretty ideal life to me.

It may be because I was on a super baseball high after last night’s amazing World Series game, but it’s possible I enjoyed this movie even more today than I did as a kid. It’s funny and heartwarming, and only features sliiightly implausible baseball scenes that are easy to overlook. Plus it has one of the great aspects of watching movies of this era — the ability to pick out random actors nobody heard of then, but have since gone on to more famous roles. In this case, the winner was the first basemen for the Cubs, actor Neil Flynn, who is much better known as the janitor on the TV show “Scrubs.”

Even the star of the movie, Thomas Ian Nichols, managed to avoid the fate of many child actors. Instead of being in one big film, doing a couple of TV show cameos and disappearing from the acting world, he has consistently worked since this movie came out, most notably as one of the stars of the “American Pie” series.

And of course I can’t leave out director Daniel Stern, who also acted in the movie. Most people would know him best as one of the robbers in the classic “Home Alone.”

I was also struck by how many lines I remembered, many that my friends and I quoted over the years (and perhaps still today): “Hey Rosinbagger!” “Did he just say, ‘funky butt-lovin?'” “Piiitcher’s got a biiig butt.” “Float it!”

Here’s to hoping the next one is such a positive experience.

October 28, 2011 baseball movies Uncategorized