Tag: personal (Page 8 of 10)

Bearded Blogger

January 19, 2010 / DB

Personal grooming stories from your humble blogger.

Like many jackasses, um young men who were attending college in the early 90s, come finals time in December, I tended to eschew the razor for 10-14 days. The finals beard was an important part of college, right up there with puking in bar bathrooms and stalking attractive members of the opposite sex that you were infatuated with but afraid to talk to.

I’m not really sure what the purpose of the finals beard was. If anything, a good, hot shower and a shave might be just the thing to reenergize you when you were cranking out papers and cramming. I suppose the finals beard was a symbol to the world of your level of commitment to the educational process. “I might have blown this entire semester off, but I’m serious about the next two weeks,” was the message.

All this is preface to my admission that I just went 26 days without shaving, the longest stretch since I went 14.5 years without shaving to begin my life.* This was no finals beard, this was the real thing.

(That’s right, I was shaving as a freshman. I was 14! I was a man!)

It began out of typical laziness. I went roughly a week without shaving, mostly because I wasn’t leaving the house much, very cold weather was expected, and I don’t like to shave to begin with. Sometime around New Year’s, I took a long look in the mirror before I got to work with the razor and decided, what the hell. I cleaned up the neck and the cheeks, left the rest, and waited to see what grew.

I was both pleased and surprised by the results. Pleased in that, after a rough second week, I thought it filled in fairly well and looked decent. Surprised by the amount of gray hair in it. I have plenty of gray hair on my head, but I’m lucky in that it blends in with the rest of my hair and isn’t super noticeable. On the beard, however, it was quite apparent. I know I’m pushing 40 and all, but it did kind of bum me out to see these clear indications of my age.

I broke down and shaved everything off tonight. It was getting pretty itchy. Also I wasn’t really sure how to trim out all the wild hairs that were jutting out without setting the growth back a week or two. And we were going to an open house at the school where M. will move to next year. I wanted to present a well-groomed, clean cut image in case we got cornered by the priest. It’s bad enough I’m not Catholic; if I look like a dirty hippy they’ll have our girls under a microscope from day one.

So it was fun, I guess. Something else I’ve ever done that I can cross off my life to-do list, right up there with running a marathon and getting my own by line. The year is already off to a great start!

❖

I Have No Class

July 30, 2009 / DB

My 20 year high school reunion is this weekend.

Those are some of the scariest words in any language.

When I turned 30, I was excited. I felt like I was finally old enough where people would take me seriously. Turning 30 gave me a new sense of confidence, as if I had finally arrived at true adulthood after years of trying to figure out if I was a grown up or still a kid. Now that 40 is right around the corner, I must admit my thinking is more along the lines of, “Wait…I’m going to be how old?!?!”

I’ve been thinking about high school, and the time that has passed since graduation, a lot recently. We are not heading back to Kansas City this weekend for the reunion. For years I said there was no way I would go. While I enjoyed my ten year reunion, I was disappointed that a lot of people I wanted to see and catch-up with did not attend. I guess I figured I still kept in touch with the people I cared about and had an interest in what they were doing, so why bother going back for a cliched night of asking people how they’re doing, reliving dumb things we did in middle school, etc.?

But that changed over the spring and we tentatively decided to head back. When plans changed, I started to get kind of excited about the event. Some of the people who I was in regular contact with 10 years ago have drifted away, and I was eager to reconnect with them. I realized that for every awkward conversation, there would probably be 2-3 good ones. And the night was sure to be full of crazy stories we could talk about afterwards.

A variety of factors made traveling this weekend extremely difficult, though, and we agreed it wasn’t worth it to fly in on Saturday afternoon and then need to be back at the airport first thing Sunday morning. Again my feelings about the reunion are mixed. Based on some of the Facebook connections I’ve made in recent months, there was a group of people I was very interested to catch-up with. And then there were people I was dreading talking to, the people I didn’t know in high school but suddenly wanted to be my Facebook friends. And there’s a part of me that thinks these awkward moments are an important part of growing up and I’ll be missing something by not being there.

The good news (for my Kansas City readers) is that in place of a rushed trip this weekend, we are working to bring the whole family back in October, while the big sisters are on fall break. We’ll keep you all updated as that gets closer, but we hope to have more time to hang out with everyone then, reintroduce you to M. and C., and introduce you to L. for the first time (for most of you).

I may have to dig into my boxes of cassette tapes and play a few fine selections from 1989 this weekend.

Gym Wrap Up

July 22, 2009 / DB

If I’m not mistaken, I never shared how our final sessions with our trainer went. I believe the last time I offered an update was in May. So we have some ground to cover.

Our final three or four sessions were focused on strength and then power. The strength weeks were pretty straight forward: heavy weights for low reps, generally 4-5 sets of only five reps. I have to admit the testosterone kicked in during these weeks as I started throwing some heavy weights around (or more correctly struggling to gently move them from a resting position) and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Until the next morning when all the stiffness set in. There were some especially brutal dead-lifts that nearly wrecked both my back and S.’s.

The power week was a mess. S. wasn’t able to make our session, so I was on my own. I had no idea what a power workout was going in. Turns out it’s a lot of jumping and leaping and squatting and whatnot. Then you throw medicine balls around for awhile. It nearly made me puke. We began with several series of jumps: first jumping onto progressively higher benches; then doing a lunge, jumping into the air, and landing in a lunge position with the opposite leg forward; squat-thrusts that ended with a vertical jump; and finally what I’ll call jump rope jumping in which you take a small hop, jump as high as you can while bringing your knees to your chest, and repeating. By the time we got to the first set of that final exercise, I was already sweating like crazy, struggling to catch my breath, and seeing spots. After that set my legs were like rubber and I started looking for a trashcan. I avoided purging, but did have to walk out the lactic acid on the treadmill. I chose to skip repeating any of those workouts the rest of that week.

So we wrapped up our work with the trainer the week before we went to Mexico. After a week or so off, I’ve started the workouts from the beginning, adding weight or more difficult apparatuses as needed. It’s pretty amazing to be doing squats on a Bosu with relative ease now compared to back in February when I could barely stay upright on one. I don’t think I’ve made dramatic, visible changes to my body, but I am definitely in better shape than I was when we started. Of course, I feel like I’m back to a fairly base level of fitness now and what I do from here on out will be the real benefit. I knew I was out of shape but it’s humbling to see how all the work I’ve done over six months just got me back to a point where I think I should have been to begin with.

I think I’ve said this in each of my summaries, but I really enjoyed our trainer’s approach. Regardless of phase or what kinds of workout tools we were using, we stuck to these basics: two lower body exercises, a chest exercise, a back exercise, a shoulder exercise, then a series of total body exercises and ending with ab work and yoga for stretching. We never did biceps curls or triceps extensions or any other exercises that focused on a single, secondary muscle group. At first I was a little confused by this, but as my fitness improved I could feel the total body portion of our workouts hitting all those groups in ways that were a lot more interesting than standing around and curling dumbbells.

By far my favorite total body exercise is what our trainer called grannies: you hold a medicine ball in front of you with your arms extended, squat down letting the weight drop between your legs, then explode up lifting the weight up over your head. He recommended thinking of trying to throw the weight as high, straight above your head as you could. Without actually throwing it, of course. When we started these in week three, they just about knocked me out. Not unlike the power workout, I would be sweating, struggling to breath, and trying not to pass out when we got to set three. By May, though, when I had firmed up my core strength and my knees weren’t creaking quite as much, I started to really dig them. I was still gassed at the end of set three, but now it was like how I feel after a good, hard run. We did a few variations on these, sometimes going from left foot to right shoulder and vice versa for example. If you want to do a basic exercise that hits everything, I highly recommend these.

So yeah, I’m in better shape than I was back in February. There’s still room for improvement. I didn’t do a lot of cardio work in conjunction with our weight work, so my goal for this second time through is to run at least a couple times a week. I do notice strength that I didn’t used to have, especially in my core muscle groups, and some of the little aches and pains I used to have in my knees and back are not nearly as noticeable as they used to be. I think that’s a sign that this routine was a success.

Cursed

May 28, 2009 / DB

You may remember my four-month battle to get new glasses that spanned last October to January. I’m at it again.

This time I’m trying to get some prescription sunglasses. Since the first week of April I have 1) ordered a pair and been informed a week later that the frames I ordered will not work with my prescription, 2) ordered a new pair in the correct frames only to receive them and find the prescription was wrong, 3) sent that pair back to be corrected and then had my eye care provider fail to call and let me know they were in, 4) finally went in and got them and, you guessed it, the prescription was off again.

Step four came yesterday. The woman helping me asked what the problem had been on my previous visit, checked the problem on the pair I was trying on, did some looking at my account, and then said, “Oh, I think I see the problem. We shouldn’t have ordered this kind of lens material with your prescription. Let’s try plastic and I bet they’ll work fine.”

That information would have been helpful two months ago.

Keep in mind, because my optometrist is a family friend, we go to a fancy place and not the eye department at Target or Costco. Even with my crazy prescription, I’m beginning to wonder if I would have better luck going to one of those places.

So my sunglasses are on their way back to Louisville again. Hopefully they’ll remember to call me this time, but I won’t hold my breath that they’re going to work. With some luck, I’ll have them by the time we go to Mexico next month.

Change Has Come

January 21, 2009 / DB

A post that is (mostly) not about what you might think it is about.

I’ve slowly, over the past three months, been making a very important change in my life, and finally completed that change yesterday. I have ditched my contacts and am wearing glasses exclusively for the first time in 23 years.

Why on earth would I do something like that? If you were at my wedding, you know that my transition to contacts back in 1986 was a big deal (Thanks for bringing that up, Mr. N!).

In a word: Lasik. I want to get my eyes fixed. During my eye exam a year ago, I asked my doctor whether he thought I was a match and what it would take to get prepared. While the Lasik people have final say about who is and is not a candidate, he told me that my combination of eye defects (I’m near sighted and strong astigmatism) can be corrected with surgery. The trick, he warned me, is getting my eyes back to a “normal” state before surgery. Because my prescription is very strong and thus hard on my eyes, it would take as long as four months wearing glasses exclusively to get my corneas to come back into shape before surgery.

So, when I prepared for my eye exam in October, I decided I’d take the plunge and just get glasses this time around. If I needed to spend four months in them, I might as well switch now and if I’m ready for surgery late this year or early next, I’ll be prepared. Plus, glasses are kind of cool these days.

I had my exam the week after L. was born, ordered some new glasses, and began wearing my old glasses more and my contacts less and less. On Halloween the new glasses came in, but the astigmatism correction was incorrect in one lens, so we sent them back. Another two weeks went by, during which I only wore my contacts when I had to work or drive at night, before the updated glasses came in. I wore them for a week, could barely see beyond arm’s length, and went back again.* Two more weeks passed, new glasses arrived, same story; I could read with them but that was about it. I went in just before Christmas for my third exam. My doc said my eyes were at a completely different prescription than what he had read in October. Rather than go through this cycle again, he sent me home for two weeks to see if my eyes had finally settled down. I went back after New Year’s, we got the same prescription as on my last visit, and ordered the lenses. They came in yesterday and finally worked.

(For the record, I only wore these glasses around the house.)

My doc isn’t sure if these issues bode ill for me having surgery. It could just be the normal correction taking place after putting the contacts away. But my prescription did swing around a bit, to use his term, and he’s a little concerned that I may have some areas of weakness in my corneas which would eliminate surgery as an option. I guess we’ll just have to see what the Lasik people say when I go in for an assessment.

Beyond getting the prescription right, it’s been a fairly easy transition. I had been wearing my glasses more over the past year because my eyes had become less tolerant of my contacts anyway. It is annoying to have to clean them off ten times a day, as the smallest streak of spec of dust drives me crazy. I’ve had to learn to get by without sunglasses, which on sunny days with snow-covered ground is very difficult. But I’ll probably get some prescription sunglasses for the summer.

The contacts are still around. I had to put them in last week when I was using the snowblower. With the windchill below zero, I had to wear a ski mask, which meant my glasses were fogging up and freezing over. I’ll keep them around for moments like that, trips to the pool, etc. But I expect the occasions I put them in to be few and far between. Besides, they are really uncomfortable now that I’m not used to them.

I never thought I would make this change. I hope that surgery is indeed an option, because I’d like to be able to see the alarm clock, not worry about breaking glasses or ripping a contact lens, etc. one day.

As for the other big event Tuesday, the Inauguration, I obviously loved it. But I always love these things, even if I don’t particularly care for the person taking the oath of office. The <a href=”http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/01/the_inauguration_of_president.html”>scenes</a> on Tuesday were amazing and reaffirming. There is that moment, when the new president is surrounded by all of his supporters, that gives you hope that things will be different for the next four years. That we’ll all get along and the petty political stuff will be pushed aside. That the rhetoric of the day’s speeches will be guideposts for people of all perspectives. Regardless of who is leaving and who is taking over the office, it’s always a fabulous day that reminds us of why our nation is so special. This year just happened to be a little more special, for many reasons.

And now comes the hard part.

The previous occupants left a lot of extraordinary messes that need to be cleaned up. And the fact is the events that define the Obama presidency are probably things we know nothing about today. Who knew about Osama eight years ago? Or the Internet in 1992? Or Saddam in 1988? And so on. I think we have the right guy in there, but he’s facing an unbelievable task simply to right the ship. The good news is this country is at its best when facing the worst of times. And President Obama seems uniquely qualified to lead in times like these. Let’s hope he can deliver.

Round Numbers

February 22, 2008 / DB

I’ve come at this a couple different ways and wasn’t terribly satisfied with the results, so I’ll give this a third shot and see what happens.

It was ten years ago today (February 22) that my mom was killed in a car accident. As with any anniversary, in some ways it seems like yesterday, and in others it seems like it’s been a lot longer than ten years. As I’ve thought about this, I realized that there is about a 14 hour stretch of time from that day where I remember everything that happened, that I thought, that I said, and that I did, beginning at 6:00 PM when my step-dad called and told me she had been in an accident. In that sense, it seems like it was just a week ago or so. But, when I look at all the things I’ve accomplished and experienced since then, though, I realize that it really has been a long time.

As most of you know, S.’s mom died 15 years ago this summer, and we talk often about what we’ve missed during the time since both our mothers passed. We both realized that our mothers are forever frozen in time. While S.’s dad and my step-dad have continued to age, my mom is still 46 and S.’s is still 53. It’s odd to wonder about what my mom would be like today if she had lived. Would she be healthy, what would she look like, how would her personality have changed as she aged? And, of course, as the time since her death gets greater and greater, it becomes harder and harder to visualize her, to hear her voice, and so on.

I don’t make a huge deal out of the date, because I think of her and miss her every day. I went through my grieving process and I’m not one to get sucked back into that. But I will think about her a little more today, hoping that I’m living up to her high standards most of the time and grateful that my life is as good as it is.

Dreams

January 29, 2007 / DB

I have to say, C. has done quite well in her transition to sleeping all-night. We’ve only been up with her once in the past two weeks (JINX for tonight, right there!). M. is waking up more for some reason, but at least with her you just go cover her up again, make sure she has whatever toy or animal she’s crying for, and then she’s out again. With all this sleep I’ve been getting, though, has come a very strange group of dreams. Some nights, they’re just bizarre. Weird stuff that makes no sense. Other nights they’re sick and twisted. Like crazy violent stuff. Most nights, or mornings rather, they seem to go on forever. So despite getting to sleep all night and until 8:00 or so, I wake up dazed and disoriented, as if I had still been up three times over the night. Sunday night/Monday morning’s dream was especially odd, and I happen to remember much of it. So below, as best as I can remember it, is how it went down.

I was back in my old stomping grounds of Lawrence, KS. KU was playing Oklahoma State in basketball, but I couldn’t join my OSU friend Billy at the game because I had class. When I tried to get in after class, I ran into President Ford. We stood around talking outside the school newspaper office. Suddenly, smoke started pouring from under the door to the j-school. We freaked out and decided it was some kind of plot against the former President. So he threw me his car keys and told me to go get his car and get him out of there before whoever was after him found him. I sprinted across the parking lot, to where his car was parked in the far, deserted corner. It was an old, beaten-up, 1970s Chrysler station-wagon. As I ran to it and tried to find the right key, I noticed people sitting in cars parked near President Ford’s all staring at me. These were the people who were after him! I flew into the car, started it up, and gunned the engine. I shot past the two cars that had been waiting just before they could pull in front of me. As I headed towards the President, I saw more activity. The Secret Service, not knowing that I was trying to save the president, were springing into action, attempting to cut me off before I could reach him. I floored it and hoped I could reach him before they blocked my path. I made it to him, he hopped in, and we took off.

And that’s all I remember, although when S. brought C. into our room around 6:30 and again when I went to cover M. up at 7:20, when I tried to go back to sleep, I kept falling back into the same dream.

Amateur dream analysts, have at it!

Thank You

August 11, 2005 / DB

…to all who posted comments or sent me e-mails after my big news on Tuesday. I’ve been very excited about this turn of events, so have had some trouble focusing on the things that get me through the day like reading, writing, and eating. I’m starting to feel normal again, though. Of course, when I order my shiny, new <a href=”http://www.apple.com/powerbook/”>PowerBook</a> that I feel is necessary for success as graduate student, I’ll probably start freaking out again until the FedEx truck pulls up in a couple days. (Why order on-line when I’ve got an Apple Store five minutes away? Well, I can avoid the sales push to add the AppleCare plan or any other peripherals to my purchase. Although I am going into the Store today to play around with a Book a little more and who knows what can happen while I’m in there.)

A few comments on your comments:

I’m struggling with mascot loyalty. Technically, I will be a Hoosier. Then again, I’ll be taking classes at IUPUI which is the Jaguars. But my degree will say Indiana University. And, of course, unless you went to a small school for undergrad, you really shouldn’t have any mascot loyalty to your graduate school. I know a few people who spend four years in Lawrence, KS followed by three years in Columbia, MO and they for sure are not Tiger fans. I guess I’m secretly hoping the stars align and <a href=”http://www.kusports.com/news/mens_basketball/story/114938″>Brandon Rush</a> decides to go to UMKC for a year so I can interview him and ask inappropriate questions about his oldest brother when they come to play IUPUI.

And it is Indiana University, not the University of Indiana. I guess many state schools used to be named in this manner, KU notably and the Lawrence paper has never adjusted, and IU has never decided to switch letters around. Native Hoosiers get quite defensive when you refer to their school by the wrong name. See also: Ohio State alums.

I believe the commute to Marquette would be a killer, but knowing a fine journalist like Chris Farley was an alum is tempting.

I do start classes in two weeks, but I was already enrolled under the non-degree program umbrella. I’m supposed to talk to the associate dean at IU next week to get everything squared away. I’m not sure how it works exactly with balancing contact between the faculty in Bloomington vs. Indy.

It’s very gratifying to have other people review what you’ve done in your career and find value in it. That’s really what I thought would get me into graduate school, the fact I did a very good job for 6 1/2 years doing things that in no way matched my strongest abilities. Still, I was nervous they would overlook those accomplishments and focus on the fact I rarely went to class some semesters as an undergrad and have one of the most horrible transcripts ever as a result. If I ever make it famous and get interviewed on national TV (Even C-SPAN’s Book TV would be fine), I can look in the camera and say, “Kids, this is what you can accomplish with a GPA somewhere in the barrio of the <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendoza_Line”>Mendoza Line</a>.

I’ve got lots of projects in some state of readiness. I’ll try to get you caught up over the next couple days.

Fun With Yearbooks

July 22, 2005 / DB

I brought back several boxes of books and other old items from Kansas City two weeks ago and have slowly been working my way through them. Two absolute gems of finds were my sixth and eighth grade yearbooks (I don’t know if seventh grade is just located elsewhere or if it was destroyed thanks to an especially unfortunate picture of your favorite blogger that year). As you can imagine, each yearbook was good for quite a few laughs. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Sixth Grade, 1982-3:

We were new to yearbooks, being 12 year olds and all, so the comments people wrote in mine weren’t all that eloquent. Examples:
“To a good friend! – Robert”
“To a good friend! – Mike”
“To a good friend. See you next year. – Steve” Thanks to Steve for mixing it up a little.

Here’s a fun one: “Always watch the news because someday you’ll make a good politician. – Pam” Clearly Pam was predicting our modern media age where politics is practiced as much on the evening cable news shows as in Washington or any state capital.

“See you this summer. Stay out of jail. – Mike” Sixth grade was the year of my famous assault on an unmarked police car with snowballs, but I don’t recall there being real concern that I would end up in jail. Hmmm. Am I blocking out some important memory?

“Stay sweet! See you next year! – Krickett.”
“Stay sweet. – Jen.” So it wasn’t just the boys who were repetitive. Now I know I was pretty good friends with both of these girls back then, but rereading these makes me think perhaps they didn’t put much thought into what to enter into my yearbook.

Page 5. My picture. Not too bad. Glasses. Hair still pretty straight. Face still boyish rather than teenage-ish. Nothing to be embarrassed about (yet).

“To a nice boy and a good friend. – Mindy.” Smacks of “You’re ok but not cool enough that I’ll still be talking to you next year” doesn’t it?

And now for my favorite line. “Even though your (sic) a nice person, I’m not nice to you. That’s one of my faults. – Stuart.” Brilliant! My high school friends who might read this will know who wrote that and understand it fits his personality perfectly. A sixth grader writing about his faults in a yearbook. Good stuff.

Eighth grade, 1984-5:

Now things were really picking up. Almost everyone was in the throes of puberty. We were heading to high school, so assuming our “Class of ’89” collective personality. Also, I have a lot more signatures this time. I wasn’t terribly popular by any measure back then, so I can only assume it was the joy of getting out of middle school that caused this frenzy of yearbook signings.

“Have fun. Don’t die. – Chad.” Advise for a lifetime.
“Hi. Glad I got to know you after all. Hope to see you next year and over the summer. Stay sweet. – Teri.” Wow, that’s some statement. Did I miss an opportunity with Teri back in the day?
“Have a great summer. See you next year. Maybe we’ll have some classes together. – Cali.” Holy crap, girls wanted to be in the same class as me?

“You’re a big pain when you’re around Jeff. But you’re really, really cool. Really. – Sofia.” Sarcasm?

“You’re in GT. Why are you such a troublesome student? (Sound familiar?) Home Ec’s been cool. See you next year. – Blair.” Ahh, 8th grade Home Ec. I was in our school’s gifted program and was normally a pretty good student, but when I got around a couple of my friends (two of which were in Home Ec), I tended to act out. Our teacher called me out this way in front of class one day, trying to shame me into being good. I think we put powdered laundry soap in the sugar bowls as payback for her yelling at us that day.

“To a real nice guy. Maybe a little weird but nice. Have a good summer. Love – Amy.” Sounds about right. Love?!?!
“It was nice knowing you. Your (sic) a little weird but have a great summer! – Christi.” Another girl who saw me for what I was.
“You’re weird but a good lab partner in science. Have fun this summer but give the girls a break, ok. – Deana.” Ummm…..

“I wish you didn’t give up hoops. – Woody.” Wow, the best basketball player in our class telling me he needed me out there on the court with him next year. Note to self: begin exaggerating athletic accomplishments as a kid.

“Have a great summer. Work hard in BB. – Coach Jeffries.” I had my gym coach sign my yearbook? Pathetic. And he’s pretty much telling me to hang the hoops sneakers up, isn’t he?

“You’re a cool dude. – David.” David, too, is cool.

Page 8, picture. Ooof. Bad glasses (I believe I broke my regular pair playing football right before picture day, which meant I was sporting the dreaded Backup Pair, Bob Griese models from two years earlier. Hair now much wavier, barely under control. I have the visage of a kid struggling with puberty, a lack of confidence, and uncertainty of who he is (Sure, I can see all that just from looking at the picture!). I was just trying to stay out of the way and not make any waves.

“A real trippin’ actor. Stay cool. Have a nice summer. – Rick.” We made some rather impressive movies regarding issues like time travel in our gifted classes. I really should explore converting those to digital and posting them online, don’t you think?

“You are a tough guy, Jeff told me. See you next year. – Mark.” Translation: I don’t know you very well, but my buddy says you’re cool. Maybe if we have class together next year I can decide for myself.

“Tuff Guy. Have a great summer. See ya next year. Your friend – Steve.” I was about 6’1” 130 or so in 8th grade and two people have called me tough. Were they being ironic? Or was that a put down in ’85 and I just didn’t know it?

“You are an outstanding student (I know this because that’s the rumor among all the teachers). Have a good summer and a really good time at RHS. – Ms. Sterner.” Apparently I didn’t perform all that well in her class if she had to judge me based on what she heard in the teacher’s lounge.

“Start your summer off with a job! – Nestor.” Double-entendre in middle school? I’m shocked!

“Thanks for the good time. You’re a good softball player. Have a supreme summer. – Candy.” I gave Candy a good time in 8th grade? You’d think I would remember. Supreme summer smacks of someone trying to coin a term, doesn’t it?

“You are a nice student to have in class. – Mrs. Bailey.” Translation: You were in my class but did not make enough of an impression on me that I can determine if you’ll win a Nobel Prize or shoot people from a bell tower.

“To a cool brain. Stay a brain. – Jeff.” Ok, Jeff, I will.

“You’re really sweet – stay that way! It’s been great knowing you! Maybe we’ll have a class or 2 together next year! – Mindy.” The same Mindy from sixth grade. And until I looked at her picture, I could not remember who she was. I still can barely place her. She clearly had it bad for me back then. Memo to self: If I ever attend a reunion again, avoid her, or have wife with me at all times for protection.

And my personal favorite: “Your (sic) really cool. I’m glad we are friends. I’ll write you. – John.” This comes from a long-time reader of the blog who moved away after our 8th grade year. The proof we wrote each other was sadly put on public display at my wedding two years ago.

There’s your look back at two of my middle school yearbooks. I know I have my two high school yearbooks (thanks to moving around, that’s all I got) here in the house and there are some epic comments in them that probably need to be shared in the future.

Agenda

July 21, 2005 / DB

Today is one of those brilliant days when S. is working normal people hours and M. is at the in-laws. That means daddy can do lots of stuff. Here’s my To-Do List:

Finish grad school application (Only two weeks later than I had planned).
Write thank you notes to people who wrote me recommendations.
Complete my blog post about the comments in my middle school yearbooks.
Sort books I brought home from KC.
Schedule oil change.
Go to Target. Purchase M.’s birthday present (which may rhyme with dasketball sloop).
Change light bulbs in bedroom ceiling fan.
Vacuum (Which becomes a weekly requirement rather than just a goal when you have a kid).
Mow the lawn.
Go to library.
Attempt to stay cool.

And you thought I just sat around doing nothing all day!
Now Playing: <strong>You Say You Lie</strong> by <a href=”http://www.google.com/search?q=%22The%20Raveonettes%22″>The Raveonettes</a>