Category: Uncategorized

30 May

Little Towns Made of Ticky Tacky

I didn’t know much about John Green’s “Paper Towns” before I started reading, but a few weird coincidences quickly presented themselves.

First, the story about a pair of kids, Quentin and Margo (and their friends), as they finish up high school in Orlando and do a bunch of “last” things together came as I was doing some last things with one of my closest friends before she moved to…Orlando.

Second, I started reading this book on May 5, and, well, this happened on page 27:

I could have read this book last year or four months from now, but apparently I got to it at exactly the right time. And that time was following a couple of pretty heavy books, leaving me wanting something much less intense.

Margo convinces Quentin to go on a mission one night that he later learns involves getting a whole lot of revenge on a long list of her enemies. But they have to stop for supplies:

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Well, first we’re going to Publix.”

This was the most true statement in the entire book for me. When I lived in Florida, Publix was my life, especially their mango yogurt. I visited a few years ago, and my first stop upon arriving at my aunt’s house was to stock up at Publix.

Margo is easily the badass of the two, and the one prone to offering epic assessments of their situation. At one point she throws a fish through a guy’s window, much to the shock of Quentin.

“I mean, you couldn’t have just left it in his car? Or at least on his doorstep?”
“We bring the fucking rain, Q. Not the scattered showers.”

I may be borrowing that line to inspire my softball team.

Another favorite line of Margo’s came as Quentin questioned whether she was worried about the future and what was ahead, what he called “forever.”

“Forever is composed of nows,” Margo says. No matter how long you have, no matter how you spend it, it’s all a bunch of nows that come one after another. And while you can do things to alter your future nows, when you’re in those moments you get to decide how to make them count.

Ultimately that’s all about connecting with other people, something Quentin identifies as happening only when we let ourselves be seen instead of the projected selves we want others to see.

“But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart. And it’s only in that time that we can see one another, because we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs.”

By cjhannas books Uncategorized
23 May

Fast Food Faces

McDonald’s brought back the Hamburglar, and KFC is reintroducing Colonel Sanders into its advertising, leaving one clear move in the fast food realm: the return of the Taco Bell dog.

Between 1997 and 2000, a Chihuahua named Gidget graced our TV screens in numerous commercials designed to make us say, “Yo quiero Taco Bell.” It was during this time that my connection with the hallowed food franchise solidified into what has been the greatest relationship I will ever have.

How big of a role did the dog play? It’s hard to say. I could not quiero Taco Bell any more, that’s for sure. In fact, at this moment I’m counting down the hours until I go there for dinner.

All I ask is that they do their best to bring back the dog in a form that is the opposite of what McDonald’s has done with the Hamburglar. What was once a fun little cartoon villain is now what can only be described as creepy.

McD’s is after me (apparently, so is my wife)! Tweet #RobbleRobble to keep them off my trail. https://t.co/JBVThrmHir

— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) May 12, 2015

Although I will say the new campaign taught me that his catchphrase is “robble, robble” and not “rubble, rubble” as I had previously thought. So there’s that.

After we get the Taco Bell dog back, we need to McDonald’s to up their game with a new Grimace too.

By cjhannas McDonald's Taco Bell Uncategorized
23 May

Mountain Echoes

Khaled Hosseini’s second book is called “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and his third could have been titled “A Thousand Times Your Heart Will Break.”

“And The Mountains Echoed” is a ridiculously gripping story about a brother and sister in Afghanistan who are separated by their struggling widower father, along with the often tragic circumstances of his wife, her sister and brother, and many others they all become interwoven with throughout their lives.

It is a beautiful story, there is no doubt about that, with the way Hosseini paints these relationships in a way that makes you care so much about each person. At some points though, you want to beg him to stop and have one of them win the lottery or something instead of enduring the profoundly sad. When Abdullah and Pari, the brother and sister, go to Kabul and Abdullah realizes only he is going home, I wanted to yell out on the Metro, “WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO THEM?!”

Nabi, the children’s uncle, has his own struggle with knowing he loves someone and can’t be with, and yet retains the hope that somewhere, somehow, he could.

“I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us,” he says.

That kind of hope underpins a lot of the characters as they try to overcome what they’ve been dealt, to try to make others proud, or in some cases throw success in the face of those who doubt.

I think Pari is the best example of getting up every day and moving forward despite what’s in her past, and is the most sympathetic character with how she treats others, and yet late in life she feels like she is a disappointment.

“I should have been more kind,” she says. “That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, ‘Ah, I wish I was not good to that person.’ You will never think that.”

Exactly.

This is one of those books that when you finish, you just want to sit and think about it for a while. And then maybe hug someone. And do a thousand favors for people. Generally do something to make the world a better place.

One more note, courtesy of a Greek doctor who ends up renting Nabi’s house:

“Thalia puts before me a glass of milk and a steaming plate of eggs on a bed of tomatoes. ‘Don’t worry, I already sugared the milk.'”

I read this shortly after having a postgame lunch with my work softball team where one member talked about how his mom only let the kids have soda with their dinner if they mixed it with milk. I’m fairly certain he called the concoction “pop milk.” I can’t decide if that was designed to be so gross the kids wouldn’t ask anymore, or some attempt to make the experience slightly healthier. I have no desire to test for myself.

By cjhannas books Uncategorized
22 May

If These Walls Could Talk

Every family has a few legendary stories that never lose their appeal not matter how many times you tell them.

For mine, one of those is the tale of my younger brother putting his head through the basement wall. It happened right here during a game of pickle with our other brother when we were all quite young:

The ping pong table wasn’t there at the time. On the far end we had stacked up a few camping air mattresses to allow for sliding into the base without rug burn, except all that did was provide a near friction-free, headfirst trip through drywall as Pat dove to avoid a tag. I wish we had a picture of the result. Pat’s head perfectly split the studs, leaving drywall dust in his hair as the only real damage.

He stood up and looked blankly at me and Ben, appearing calm and okay until we asked the natural question: “Didn’t that hurt?” Then, with the realization visibly spreading through his body, his brain registered that perhaps that wasn’t such a pleasant experience, and he started to cry. Not wanting to get in trouble for either injury or property destruction, Ben and I went into damage control mode, doing everything we could to get Pat to stop.

Thus was born, “Baby drink coffee, coffee drink baby,” a completely ridiculous phrase that we repeated over and over, as fast as we could, as Pat shifted from tears to uncontrollable laughter. There is no good explanation for why this worked, but even if I got hit with the Men In Black mind eraser, that memory would somehow still endure.

While we’re on the topic of basement damage, there are some other epic tales from down there. That window in the first picture is a recent addition. There used to be a roughly two foot by one foot window at the top, which we broke at least three times by playing baseball games with the batter hitting balls in that direction. We eventually got smart enough to use foam balls:

Of course, that didn’t stop us from continuing to do some damage. It’s possible I may have followed through a bit too high a couple of times and left my mark on the ceiling:

In high school, a couple of my friends were wrestling just below that mark and ended up accidentally running into the wall, leaving a butt-sized hole. To their credit, the pusher showed up the next day with a square of drywall and a toolbox and patched that sucker up:

Lions are versatile creatures. They can hunt, star in Disney films and serve as Hollywood studio mascots.

They can also obscure obscure hockey stick holes in the wall:

That, by the way, is the exact moment that roller hockey got banned in the basement. In retrospect we probably got lucky that was the worst thing we did.

On the other side of the basement, where the ping pong table was located for most of my life, is a whole whose origins I don’t quite know, but I suspect were somehow the result of a paddle hit:

What I like most about this one is the mystery involved. Not the way it was created, but rather what is down inside the wall there.

I can’t say for sure how many, but I absolutely know there are several ping pong balls that got pushed through the hole over the years. That’s probably a better end for cracked ones than the more fun game of smashing them as hard as possible at a sibling. I hope someone keeps the collection if and when they open up that wall.

(P.S. If you want to know more about the artwork on the walls, it’s all explained here.)

By cjhannas family Uncategorized
15 May

Pizza & Baseball

My younger brother hates Papa Johns, but is fortunate to live in the Washington area. We have the highest threshold to clear for baseball-related Papa Johns discounts, making it less likely he’ll encounter his nemesis.

Eighteen of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams have promotions with Papa Johns according to my count compiled during tonight’s Nats rain delay. Except in one case, these deals involve getting half off for either simply winning a game, scoring a certain number of runs, or a combination of both.

Combos:
Nationals – win & score 7
Orioles – win & score 5
Royals – win & score 5

#Winning:
Twins
Phillies
Brewers
Cardinals
Pirates
Diamondbacks
Rockies

Scoreboard:
Rangers – score 7
Yankees – score 6
Rays – score 6
Braves – score 6
White Sox – score 5
Indians – score 5
Marlins – score 5

The Reds have a promo that isn’t tied to their games at all, but rather just gives people in Cincinnati 50 percent off on Mondays and Thursdays.

So how has all of that played out in the first month and a half of the season? Well, my brother may want to consider Atlanta as a second home, which is convenient given that he is a Braves fan. That team has failed the most at triggering Papa Johns deals.

Combos:
Nationals – 10
Orioles -11
Royals – 16

#Winning:
Twins – 19
Phillies – 13
Brewers – 12
Cardinals – 24
Pirates – 17
Diamondbacks – 15
Rockies – 11

Scoreboard:
Rangers – 8
Yankees – 10
Rays – 8
Braves – 6
White Sox -10
Indians – 12
Marlins – 16

And as always, the Cardinals are ruining life for everyone, including the hard-working people at Papa Johns locations in the St. Louis area.

By cjhannas baseball Uncategorized
09 May

Patio Life

It’s a spring Saturday afternoon. After splitting a pair of DC media league softball games, I’m outside on my patio writing. It looks like this:

All fall and winter I was focused on getting things done inside my place so that I could use the early spring to get this area together, and then, of course, enjoy it. When I moved, I brought along some chairs that my old roommate didn’t want, and after obtaining some pots and stealing plants from my dad’s greenhouse (with permission), I ended up with this:

There’s a mix of red and gold peppers, tomatoes, rosemary, basil (which is pretty much dead, whoops), black-eyed susans, lillies, and a blueberry bush.

Plus there’s the extended view of the strip of woods just beyond the patio, which has the requisite trees, squirrels and other assorted wildlife. While watering the plants the other day a bunny hopped by:

I can’t even describe how big of an upgrade this is from my last place, where we had a big deck, but there was no shade and I nearly had a heart attack when the heat pump kicked on five feet from where I was sitting.

Now I just need to find a good way to watch Nats games out here.

By cjhannas Uncategorized
01 May

Oops, A Major Newspaper Did It Again

Last year, I fixed the New York Times, rescuing its homepage redesign from the realms of insanity that left the mega-organized among us unable to even.

The problem there was a grid pattern on the bottom half of the page with boxes for 27 items and only content to fill 26 of them. It was maddening.

Now, The Wall Street Journal has gone down a similar path, setting up clear expectations for space to be filled, and yet having nothing there.

Overall, I do like what the WSJ has done with their new look. Pieces are clearly defined, the visual appeal is much greater than their (boring!) old page and the way they grouped content at the bottom is easy to navigate.

Looks nice, right? But go down to the bottom and we run into the issue.

Sure, we’re in the neighborhood of super hyper micro specific content, but if you’re going to have a space for eight things, come up with eight things to put there. Or cut back to four. Or have the five and three cat pictures. Something that fulfills the destiny of all that extra white space.

Do the right thing, WSJ.

By cjhannas Uncategorized
27 Apr

Alley Oops

In the year 2015, there exists technology to tally bowling scores and display them on a screen overhead. In the absence of that function, those who grew up with access to it all their lives will resort to anarchy.

That is my takeaway from a tremendously fun weekend celebrating the wedding of my friend Jon, with whom I shared a room for our last year of college and during grad school. You may remember Jon from such films as “We Had A Mouse In Our Apartment And Now We Don’t,” “I Used To Eat Terrible Hot Dogs” and, well, an actual film I made about our college newspaper.

After the rehearsal dinner Friday, we went out for some duckpin bowling where we were handed a transparent score sheet and a marker. We only used one of the lanes for our rousing team competition (college friend Laura and I somehow lost badly despite being named Team Dynasty). The result? Well, this happened:

Before you go rolling your eyes at boys, I think (but cannot prove) one of the bridesmaids was responsible for writing that.

Saturday’s ceremony and reception continued the theme of good times with excellent food.

I would advise anyone looking for wedding speech advice to study the video of this event (I’m sure the NSA has a copy) and its examples of mixing the combo of humor and poignant, kind words about great friends.

Also, let’s get more photo booths out in the world:

Groom and groomsmen ready to fight crime

Thus ends what has been an insanely busy April for me. I hope you’re ready for lots of posts here in May since I’ll actually have time to write things!

By cjhannas Uncategorized
17 Apr

New & Old

Old with the old, in with the same, but newer.

I can definitely be a creature of habit with certain things and routines that work perfectly for me, and I see little reason to change them.

I thought about that earlier today as I walked from a parking garage at Reston Town Center across the street to Best Buy to get a case for my new phone, which is the same as my old one but three models newer. It struck me that three(?) years ago, I made the exact same walk for the exact purpose. I purchased a case from the same manufacturer, and then followed the same routine of walking out the door, tossing the packaging in the trashcan outside, and proceeding back across the street to Chipotle for lunch.

So long, old phone

Just before the case excursion, I hit a running store in another part of the town center itself. You may recall from social media that I just bought running shoes a few weeks ago. That is true. But I discovered that while those are fine for a few miles, they are not a good fit for me on longer runs. So I went back to the drawing board and ended up trying the Nike Structure Triax, which I ran in for years before they made a redesign that made the upper hit my ankle in a very painful spot. Fortunately they changed up the style again, bringing the midsole back closer to the ones I loved and making the upper in no way hit that part of my ankle.

Here’s to many great miles with my old friend, and the future ability to be in and out of a running store in 3.2 seconds with the latest version in my size.

By cjhannas Uncategorized
13 Apr

Chicken Nuggets For The Soul

My night turned around because of chicken nuggets and macaroni & cheese. Not ones I ate, but rather those that only ever existed in a mental picture from a date.

I had trouble sleeping before work yesterday, the kind of fitful rest that involves zonking out for two hours, then waking for no reason and spending 30 minutes with my mind racing through a thousand different topics and thoughts. Rinse and repeat.

The last cycle had me staring at the alarm clock an hour before it was set to go off as a week of what had seemed like promising dating leads that later fizzled replayed in a way that made sleeping impossible.

I decided that my best move was to get up and head into DC early, like I sometimes do, to enjoy a peaceful walk on the National Mall and take in the cherry blossoms at sunset.

Those walks are awesome in the winter when no tourists and few locals are ever around. There’s nothing but lit-up monuments and museums around, the sound of crunching gravel under my feet, stars above and the opportunity to think about nothing if I want.

Last night was far busier, adding about 10 percent to my state of already being annoyed with life. But after 15 minutes of snapping pictures and hanging out in a quiet spot in the warm breeze, everything flipped.

I looked across to the Jefferson Memorial and its bright white dome against the now dark night sky. Immediately my mind flashed back to the last time I was there at night.

It was on a second date last summer that led us to visit the Lincoln Memorial and then take a stroll around the much quieter, post-bloom Tidal Basin. We stopped to rest on the Jefferson steps, enjoying the serenity of the water and the reflection of the Washington Monument in front of us. The conversation turned to our favorite foods, which obviously included the all-important optimal pizza toppings.

Then she told me about the young boy she looked after during the day and his affinity for chicken nuggets and mac & cheese. Those weren’t favorites he demanded be on the dinner menu once a week, but instead what he wanted to eat at each and every meal. All the time. She described how those mealtime conversations went:

“So [kid’s name], what would you like?”
“Chicken nuggets. Mac and chese.”

Direct. Seeing the memorial brought back the sound of her voice and the way she said “mac and cheeese.” It was something I hadn’t thought about since that night but made me legitimately laugh last night (thankfully in the dark so tourists didn’t think I was crazy). And just like that, my entire mood transformed.

I remembered that for all the frustrations and failures, I have had some really fun dating experiences, especially in those small moments like chatting on monument steps on a warm night. I remembered how a few minutes later it started to rain and we power walked to the nearest Metro station and then laughed as we rode down the escalator, seeing the drops falling from each other’s soaked heads.

Sometimes we take things in life too seriously and let them be harder than they should be.

Sometimes we just need chicken nuggets and mac & cheese.

By cjhannas Uncategorized